Keep informed about Isle water levels

Users can make decisions about recreational or even industrial use of local rivers as a result of the new service. An example of a Twitter account van be seen at - http://gaugemap.co.uk/Station/1978

Shoothill GaugeMap uses a dedicated website, available via smartphones and tablets as well as desktops, plus thousands of dedicated Twitter accounts, to make use of data collected by the Environment Agency each day.

Each of 2,400 monitoring stations generates information on water levels at regular intervals daily, but until now it has not been easily accessed. Shoothill has already worked with the Environment Agency to create FloodAlerts (www.shoothill.com/flood), but this new tool offers even greater accessibility.

“Rather than focusing simply on when a river may flood, GaugeMap gives real-time data on actual river levels,” said Rod Plummer, MD at Shoothill. “Add in the Twitter accounts that we have set up for each gauge, and you have a huge amount of information at your fingertips, wherever you are in the country and simply accessible via the site or Twitter.”

On the website users can search by river name, catchment or geographical location or filter results by current status (normal level, below average or risk of flooding). On searching, the site brings back all relevant results, allowing users to compare the status of a river along its length, or review historic data going back several days.

Residents, emergency services and local authorities, farmers, fisherman and kayakers can all assess the state of the river they are near or planning to visit, and react accordingly.

GaugeMap will also form a key part of fishing, transport, water abstraction, wildlife conservation and sporting pursuits.

We have developed a system that takes a huge and disparate set of data and transforms it into useful, easily navigable and accurate information,” Mr Plummer added.