About

The Smart Sea Level Sensors Project aims to install a network of 50-100 internet-enabled water level sensors across flood-vulnerable Chatham County, via a working partnership between officials from the Chatham Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) and the City of Savannah, together with a diverse team of scientists and engineers from Georgia Tech.

The sensor network will stretch from Interstate 95 to Tybee Island, capturing a wide range of tributary sizes, orientation, and building densities. The data collection will be complemented by a suite of modeling tools to inform flood risk and vulnerability, including a high-resolution coastal ocean model as well as an integrated hydrological model to capture surface runoff during high precipitation events. Taken together, the framework enables the assessment of short-and long-term coastal flooding risk and vulnerability that are required to inform planning for flood mitigation strategies.

This is the first project of its kind in the region, and our goal is to provide a template for expansions of this technology and community stakeholder framework to other areas of vulnerable coastline along the southeastern US.