Sensor network for monitoring and natural-risk management in the Quindio-Colombia area

Natural-risk management systems have become critical in recent years as a Colombian government policy to reduce human fatalities and material costs resulting in the infrastructure reconstruction. In particular for the department of Quindío-Colombia, the main natural hazards are threatening earthquakes and landslides. These landslides are generated by the accumulation of water due to heavy rains and triggered by seismic effects. Therefore, a system for natural-risk management for the Quindio are must rely primarily on hydro-climatological and seismic variables. Although the department has a real-time network for seismic monitoring, there is not a reliable realtime monitoring network for hydro-climatic variables in places where landslides are common. In these places, this monitoring is performed manually in a large number of the existing sensor places. For this reason, this paper describes the design of a monitoring network of hydro-climatic variables for the existing sites using ZigBee/GSM technology. This technology reduces deployment and maintenance costs, and it provides a flexible design for future network expansion. As a short-term goal, we expect to integrate the existing real-time system for seismic monitoring and the real-time system for hydro-climatic-variables monitoring proposed in this study, which will provide future natural-risk management and early alarm generation.