Early warning system for the reduction of risks of floods, using Arduino technology and network communication of data for the middle basin area of Rio Lempa

Abstract

El Salvador is one of the most vulnerable countries to risks in the world (MARN, 2017). 88.7% of the country is considered a risk zone, an area in which 95.4% of the population is housed. Between 1990 and 2014, 86% of economic losses and 40% of deaths were caused by earthquakes, 10% of losses and 27% of deaths were caused by floods, and 26% of deaths were caused by landslides, 3% by electric storms and 4% by other types of disasters (Mendoza, Laguan, & Rivas, 2017). Considering this context, it is necessary to have a system of early warning to improve the response capacity to any emergency from the monitoring stations. The proposal consists of designing a prototype of an early warning system for reducing flood risks, analyzing the current situation, specifying and designing it until it is implemented; this will allow us to constantly monitor the level of the river through a simple and friendly interface. The final product is a security system that allows emitting an alert, by activating an acoustic signal, generating a notification through SMS data communication networks to the entity in charge of monitoring the guard zone.