Flood Forecasting and Monitoring

With climate change bringing about more frequent and intense rainfall that could temporarily overwhelm our drainage capacity, the ability to forecast and monitor impending heavy storms is more important than ever.

At our Joint Operations Centre (JOC), officers are on duty round the clock to conduct real-time flood monitoring using our Catchment and Waterways Operations System (CWOS) to ensure timely response. This dashboard integrates all flood-related data from various sensors across the island, including more than 1,000 water level sensors installed in drains and canals, over 500 closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras, rain gauges, weather radars and flood response vehicle locations. 

Staffed round the clock, PUB officers at the JOC vigilantly monitor data from various locations across the island, swiftly alerting relevant teams in the event of a flash flood.

The CWOS allows us to deploy our Quick Response Teams (QRT) promptly to manage flood situations onsite and keep the public out of harm’s way.

We also have an X-band weather radar system, which provides forecasted radar rainfall maps that predict rainfall patterns 30 minutes in advance. The rainfall forecasts are used in the CWOS to anticipate potential flood locations, which improves the efficiency in deploying our QRTs during flood operations.