A new project will help protect coastal communities from the impacts of flooding around the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland thanks to Hohonu, Inc., a University of Hawaiʻi technology startup that provides environmental water level monitoring. The new water level sensors, grant-funded through the University of Maryland, will be part of a larger resilience strategy in the area.
Flooding concerns and storm preparedness are part of a larger program with the University of Maryland, City of Annapolis and Hohonu. The data collected with Hohonu’s low-cost sensors and software will track and measure flooding to inform emergency management, adaptation and mitigation efforts.
“This is one of many projects that Hohonu is servicing on the east coast of the United States,” said Brian Glazer, Hohonu CEO and co-founder, and oceanography associate professor at the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. “We are working to provide solutions for a growing demand for real-time data in flood monitoring as we see increased frequency and intensity of storms and flooding. Just this year, our sensors have monitored three named storms and over 50 distinct flood events across our 80 east coast locations.”
The project is a result of an initiative to bring together land, air and water science. The goal is to learn how best to build resilience and create predictive models for more frequent and more intense flooding events. UH, a partial equity owner in the company, along with local nonprofits, is a part of Hohonu’s mission to democratize access to ocean observing technologies.
Hohonu plans to deploy up to 20 sensors in locations around the Chesapeake Bay that will provide vital information for the Annapolis City Dock. It will also help coastal communities, including Maryland’s capital city, to plan for future flood protection projects.
