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mobileᵛᴵᴱᵂ – the mobile measuring station

Use of sensor data from moving vehicles to record precipitation information as part of the digitisation strategy in water management

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Extreme weather conditions in the context of climate change

The climate-related increase in heavy precipitation events has led to immense personal injury and material damage in Germany in recent years. For example, the existing weather models are associated with many uncertainties regarding the temporal, spatial and quantitative heavy rainfall forecasts. While for precipitation stations the density and distribution of the measuring point network has a major influence on the quality of local precipitation runoff, radar measurements as an indirect measuring method are subject to other specific sources of error.

Overall objective of the project

The mobileVIEW research project addresses this issue. In today's cars, a number of sensors collect data that was actually installed for the driver's comfort, but can also be used for water management. Modern cars can thus be used as mobile measuring stations. By real-time transmission, networking and combination of a selection of data collected in cars, the input data will be systematically combined to hydrological models and enable fast predictions (nowcasting). A major focus is the development of a real-time algorithm that takes into account different data sources (vehicle sensors, radar products, pluviometers) and generates a combined precipitation product.

The presented product will enable water boards and authorities (transport, civil protection) to improve the forecasts of heavy rainfall events, alert management and control of water management facilities. Businesses and private users will also benefit from the improved nowcasting function, as they will be warned earlier and with higher spatial resolution of heavy rainfall events. In this way, they will be able to take preventive measures.