Smart Solar-Powered Drainage: An Effective Urban Flood Mitigation Solution
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69855/science.v3i3.845Keywords:
smart drainage, solar-powered pump, Internet of Things, flood mitigation, renewable energy, urban stormwater managementAbstract
Urban flooding caused by high-intensity rainfall, rapid urbanization, and the limited capacity of conventional gravity-based drainage networks continues to threaten infrastructure, public health, and economic activity in developing cities. This study designs, builds, and field-tests a Smart Solar-Powered Drainage System (SSPDS) that combines a photovoltaic energy subsystem, an ultrasonic water-level sensor, a rainfall sensor, an ESP32-based microcontroller, an automated sluice gate, and a solar-powered drainage pump to provide autonomous, grid-independent flood mitigation for peri-urban drainage channels. The prototype was tested over a 30-day field-monitoring period covering 15 rainfall events of varying intensity in a flood-prone peri-urban catchment. Results show that the SSPDS reduced the mean flood-water recession time from 88.6 minutes (conventional passive drainage) to 38.7 minutes, a 56.4% improvement, and maintained continuous autonomous operation with a mean daily PV energy yield sufficient to keep the battery state of charge above the 30% safety threshold even across two consecutive overcast days. The automatic pump-activation logic, triggered once the water level exceeded an 8 cm threshold, consistently produced a faster recession slope than the passive control channel across all monitored events. These findings indicate that integrating renewable energy with real-time IoT-based sensing and automated actuation offers a scalable, low-carbon, and cost-effective alternative to conventional urban drainage infrastructure, particularly for grid-constrained or disaster-prone urban areas.
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