Ibrahim Demir
Officials from the Iowa Flood Center are at the statehouse today, showcasing their animated computer program that allows Iowans to get a view of how their home might flood. Ibrahim Demir is a research engineer at the University of Iowa who has helped develop the Iowa Flood Information System.
“Our goal is to help people to understand the damage of flooding,” Demir says.
The system uses information from almost 400 sensors that monitor rivers and streams throughout the state. Demir says those sensors provide “real-time data” every 15 minutes.
“We can really see what’s happening in the streams and we can create warnings, forecasts,” Demir says. “So we use that data for feeding our models to make predictions of stream flows for the next up to 10 days.”
The system uses Google maps along with the flood forecasting data. It’s interactive, so you can toggle through a map of a neighborhood and see how a flood might impact property in the area, house-by-house.