Tide Together: Regional Water Level Network, a new WHOI Sea Grant project, will help Cape Cod towns predict and respond to coastal flooding by installing 30 small water level sensors along the shore.
The two-year project is supported by NOAA’s Disaster Preparedness Program and is designed to improve coastal resilience throughout the Cape.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Assistant Scientist Dr. Chris Piecuch said he and Research Associate Levi Gorrell will work with Cape Cod towns to situate two water level sensors along the shoreline in each town.
“The project has three parts: putting these sensors out, doing science with them, and engaging communities about the data," Piecuch explained. "And one of the big parts of that engagement piece is building a user-friendly website."
The compact solar-powered sensors use sound waves to detect water level.
"We have relatively good observations of long-term sea level rise from measurements on the ground and observations from space," he said. "But it turns out we really don't have good observations of coastal flooding. And that's what this project tries to address."
Cape Cod currently only has two real-time tide-gauge stations maintained by NOAA.
Piecuch anticipates the data from the new sensors will be helpful to municipalities for coastal flooding planning and disaster response, among other uses.
He added, "And you can also imagine, you know, perhaps down the line these data may inform some sort of early warning system. So, I think that there are a lot of different use cases for the data."
Once the sensors are in place, real-time data will be freely available on a public website.
