Floods are natural phenomena that are often devastating to man and nature. However, it is possible to develop preventive measures to minimise these impacts. In general, there are two types of preventive measures: structural (dams, dykes, river enlargements, reforestation) and non-structural areas of zoning-based vulnerability, monitoring and warning systems.

Monitoring and warning systems are essential to minimise the human and material damage, in urban and suburban areas, as they allow the community informed (warned) in advance of an extreme event. Thus, the monitoring and warning system enables decisions taken before the event occurs and exercise preparedness for flooding among civilians, government agencies, and NGO.

In Malaysia, hydro-meteorological monitoring activities are performed in real time. The hydrologic data updated at regular intervals (hourly to daily) from over 300 Remote Telemetry Units (RTUs) located at various strategic points nationwide.

To-date, the hydrologic data transmitted via telecommunication systems such as UHF, VHF, telephone or satellite depending on the reliability. The Master Telemetry Unit (MTU) in each state DID's office receives and displays the data for local use. An automatic e-mailer program in each state DID's office will then sends all the data through the internet to the Hydrology and Water Resources Division of DID in Kuala Lumpur that operates a Centralised Flood Monitoring System (refer diagram).

As an engineering and technology-based NGO, the experiences we saw at Penang Flood Relief in 2017 was horrendous. Villagers trapped in a flooded house waiting for aid to arrive, clueless about where to go, several centres jammed packed while several were so available. We want to step in to solve these unaddressed problems using innovation from digital technology.

Observing the situation, we would like to propose to develop a tool alerts using a mobile application we named it as FLAPS so that the information is widespread delivered in real time to every community in flood risk area and transferred in less time possible.

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FLAPS uses the smartphone location to provide instant flood warnings for the local area. Users are also able to monitor the flooding threat at other chosen places in Malaysia, such as the hometown of an elderly relative. The app is part of our growing use of technology to help better prepare communities and businesses for the devastating impacts of floods.

Please support FLAPS prototype making, and help to make an improvement in disaster management in our country through Innovative Product & Technology.

Thank you.