Southeast Texas Flood Monitoring Networked Sensors

With the continued risk of flooding in Southeast Texas, Lamar University is working to help the region improves its resiliency during large-scale flooding events. Real-time water stage, elevation, and coordinates in different points of a watershed are essential agents in flood monitoring and mapping. It also helps researchers with hydrological modeling. Southeast Texas and its watersheds and sub-watersheds were subjected to gathering data in order to monitor and map water movements. This data includes the precise positioning of 74 flood-level networked sensors installed in the first phase of this study throughout 7-county regions spanning nearly 6000 square miles in Southeast Texas to achieve the most accurate horizontal and vertical results, 0.4 in. accuracy and lower. Positions of the sensors and their surrounding critical points, including the node, bottom of the node, top of the bank, bottom of the ditch, bottom of the bridge's deck, and the center and edge of the roads, have been measured. Also, the relatives between these points are of significance and were collected. Each site's thresholds have been established with the aid of this data. Thresholds, real-time relative elevation data of these sensors, and their critical surrounding points are being transmitted to dashboards related to road closures or modeling efforts of mitigation decision-makers, emergency managers, and the public. Furthermore, in the project's next phase, this data was used to propagate flood hydrological models in Southeast Texas watersheds and sub-basins. Furthermore, some important descriptions of the water bodies where the sensors are located have been considered. Moreover, some information regarding the validation of results and also surveying operations and their most accurate benchmarks are available. Real-time kinematic (RTK) surveying technology concerning the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) has been used as an accurate, rapid, and relatively low-cost surveying method. A ZIPLEVEL PRO-2000 High Precision Altimeter and a Trimble handheld GEOX7 using RTK were applied in this regard. In order to achieve the most accurate results, the GPSPathfinder Office software was used to post-process raw materials collected from the field. CORS NAD 1983 (2011) projection for the differential correction file during postprocessing was used as the geographic coordinate system. The North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88) is the vertical control datum. GEOID18 is intended for use with coordinates in the North American Datum of 1983 (2011) [NAD 83 (2011) epoch 2010.00]. It provides orthometric heights consistent with the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88). ZIPLEVEL PRO-2000 was used to validate and double-check the measured elevation by Trimble. Also, we measured the NGS monument coordinates and elevations near each site and compared them to the published NGS reports hence finding the most accurate base providers to use as a benchmark in postprocessing. This project involves the Flood Coordination Study team at Lamar University, Center for Resiliency, in collaboration with various entities such as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, the Southeast Texas Flood Control District, and various other regional agencies, municipalities, and industries. We hope this data works for researchers and hopefully they find it useful for their studies.