🌱 Environment

Automated Waterlogging Monitoring & Early-Warning System

Tianjin's Emergency Public Event Warning Information Release Center has run a citywide automated waterlogging monitoring and early-warning system since 2017, fusing meteorological radar and rain-gauge data with dedicated water-depth sensors that report every 5 minutes at 0.1 cm precision from streets, underpasses and, since September 2022, 19 devices across the metro network's 9 lines. It is a coordination layer feeding the water authority, meteorological bureau, traffic and emergency-management departments and Tianjin Metro, not a single-agency tool. During Typhoon Doksuri on 27 July 2023, the system detected 54 cm of standing water near a Hexi district shopping mall in time for the water authority to clear it within an hour; on 22 April 2024 it detected 5–9 cm of pooling across multiple districts and triggered coordinated inter-agency traffic-control measures.

Live 📅 since 2017

🤖 AI-generated summary of the sources below — how this works · 🔎 Last verified 2026-08-02

🌱 Environment Flood resilience Sensors & IoT Safety & security

📊 Impact

Documented triggers: 54 cm of standing water detected near a Hexi district shopping mall during Typhoon Doksuri (27 July 2023), drained within an hour of the alert; 5–9 cm of pooling detected across multiple districts on 22 April 2024, which triggered coordinated inter-agency traffic-control measures. Self-reported by the operating centre; no independent audit was found.

Evidence🏛️ Official

Scale🏙️ City-wide

📖 Terms in this entry: Adaptive traffic signals · ANPR (automatic number-plate recognition) · CBTC (communications-based train control)

Sources

↗ China Meteorological Administration: Tianjin cross-department data fusion for waterlogging risk warningNational-government case study naming the operating centre and partner agencies (water, meteorology, traffic, emergency management, Tianjin Metro since 2022), the 5-minute/0.1cm sensor spec, the 2017 programme start, and both the July 2023 Typhoon Doksuri (54cm) and April 2024 (5–9cm) events.

↗ Tianjin Emergency Management Bureau: smart flood-fighting equipment coverageConfirmed to exist and cover the city's '防汛一张图' (one-map flood-fighting system) via search results; direct fetch returned 403, so cited as corroboration rather than the primary quote source.

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed above and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

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Compare this project

🇨🇳 Drainage Group Flood Monitoring "Smart Brain" · Harbin Same country, same design: a 'smart brain' fusing radar, gauges and cameras into a tiered alert for human responders. 🇵🇭 EFCOS: Metro Manila's Flood Telemetry and Floodway Gates · Manila Same genre: telemetry and alerts feeding multiple agencies at once, coordinating a response rather than triggering it. 🇩🇰 Copenhagen Bathing Water Forecast & Overflow Warning System · Copenhagen Same rung on the sensor-to-action ladder: real-time thresholds issue a public warning, nothing acts automatically. 🇯🇵 NICOS — Nagoya City Flood-Fighting Information System · Nagoya Contrast in automation: Tianjin's sensors report every 5 minutes into an automated warning; NICOS just displays readings.

Explore the wider context

📟 A Reading Is Not a Decision 🌊 Flood resilience guide 🏙️ Tianjin city profile 🌱 Environment projects

📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Automated Waterlogging Monitoring & Early-Warning System” — Tianjin, China. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/tianjin-waterlogging-warning-system/ (last verified 2026-08-02). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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