A MILP Model for Water Level Sensor Placement with Multi-Sensor and Multi-Disaster Areas

Abstract

A water level sensor is critical to measure water levels at strategic points in the river.  The sensor location directly impacts the quality of the collected data sent to the flood early warning system. To prevent and minimize the risk of flooding, it is crucial to determine the optimal locations for water level sensor placement. This research proposes a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model for water level sensor placement considering multi-sensor and multi-disaster areas. In addition, this model was applied in a case study in Tikala River, Manado, Indonesia.  The results indicated that all disaster areas could be covered by at least one single sensor. A sensitivity analysis was performed by running the model under several different budget scenarios.  When the budget increases, the number of sensors and the coverage performance are getting larger. Thus, the proposed MILP model was able to determine the optimal locations for sensor placement under a limited budget.