Australian technology firm Attentis has developed an intelligent system of sensors to provide local officials and emergency response teams with real-time monitoring of climate conditions, responding to a spate of natural disasters in Australia. 

Severe rainfall in February and March this year caused some of the worst flooding the nation’s east coast has seen, while the 2019-2020 bushfires caused populations of local wildlife such as koalas to reach historically low levels. 

Attentis’ sensor system, powered by AI and machine learning from analytics provider SAS, was designed to help pre-empt and respond to weather extremes, measuring air quality, soil and environmental health to monitor potential threats. Now, they form the world’s largest environmental monitoring network. 

“With fires and floods, every second matters,” said Jason Mann, vice president of IoT at SAS. “By combining Attentis’ intelligent sensors with our cloud-native SAS Analytics for IoT solution, we’re accelerating the speed and accuracy at which officials can respond to these environmental threats.

“Emergency responders can now continuously and accurately assess river heights, rainfall and soil moisture in real time. By closely monitoring and analyzing this data, these officials can quickly act on new insights and issue early flood warnings to people in high-risk areas who may be affected – or inundated – by severe weather.”

The system has been established in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley on Australia’s east coast, and stretches across 913 miles. The data gathered is used by emergency services and regional agricultural and utility industries, as well as residents who want to monitor rainfall, air quality, fire starts and weather.

“SAS and Attentis boost the resiliency of the people of Latrobe Valley in the face of fires, floods and other challenges brought about by climate change,” said Attentis managing director and founder Cameron McKenna.

With instances of severe weather becoming increasingly common, the ability to pre-empt potential disasters will be crucial not only in Australia but throughout the world, and as we see an uptake in digital tools throughout industries, monitoring systems such as Attentis’ could be one solution to preserving our natural resources.