Using Web GIS to Display Real-Time Rain/Stream Data with Potential Flood Impacts

The most important aspect of emergency services is situation awareness. With the explosion of mobile technology, the public wants to know the same information as the emergency personnel. With storms everyone wants to knows where is the heavy rain occurring, how will it impact the streams and rivers, where will the flooding occur, and how bad will it be. Weather is constantly changing so it is very important to have updated information in real-time. Ventura County Watershed Protection District developed a mapping interface using open source GIS, Google Maps API, and open source web standards to make the data that our agency collects available through a mapping interface with real-time updates. Two displays were developed. The first displays rainfall totals, observed weather reports, and wather temperature in a map interface. The second shows the current stream flow, forecasted hydrologic forecasted peak flows and allow the user to get a comprehensive display showing the flow over the last 5 days, forecasted flows for the next 5 days, critcal flood levels, flood impacts, and historical flow information. The ideal is to continue to develop the displays so they are mobile compatible. Development work is underway to to locate the impact areas and show inundation on the map interface.