The ALERT group is dedicated to reducing flood-related injuries, fatalities, and property damage.

Mission Statement

The ALERT Users Group advances real-time hydrologic and environmental monitoring to protect lives, property, and communities. We unite public agencies, private-sector partners, and technical professionals to promote reliable data collection, advance training and professional development, foster collaboration and knowledge sharing, and support the ALERT and ALERT2 standards underlying effective flood warning and water-resource management.

The Automated Local Evaluation in Real Time (ALERT) Users Group (AUG) is a nonprofit organization that brings together local, state, and federal agencies, private-sector organizations, consultants, vendors, and other professionals who manage and support real-time flood warning and environmental monitoring systems. Its mission centers on reducing injuries, loss of life, and property damage from floods by strengthening the technologies, practices, and partnerships behind effective local warning programs.

AUG’s Core Focus Areas

AUG supports the hydrologic warning community through three primary areas of focus:

  • Real-Time Data Collection: Advancing the effective use of automated rain, river, weather, and other environmental monitoring networks that collect and communicate critical information in real time. These systems provide the timely, reliable data needed for flood forecasting, early warning, emergency response, and water-resource management.
  • Training: Providing opportunities for system owners, operators, public agencies, consultants, vendors, and other professionals to strengthen their technical knowledge and share practical experience in the implementation, operation, and advancement of hydrologic monitoring and warning systems.
  • Annual Conferences & Professional Development: Bringing the ALERT community together through conferences, workshops, and other educational opportunities that encourage professional development, knowledge sharing, collaboration, and the exchange of new technologies and best practices. These gatherings help professionals build stronger monitoring networks and forecasting capabilities while developing relationships across the hydrologic warning community.

Together, these activities create a forum for the people and organizations operating real-time monitoring and warning systems to exchange information, improve technology, develop professional expertise, and collaborate across organizational boundaries.

History of ALERT and the Transition to ALERT2

ALERT — Automated Local Evaluation in Real Time — originated with the National Weather Service in California in the 1970s as a method for transmitting environmental observations from remote field sensors to central computers in real time. The technology became widely adopted by federal, state, and local agencies and international organizations.

In a typical ALERT network, automated sensors transmit changing environmental conditions to receiving base-station computers, providing local officials and forecasters with timely information about developing hydrologic conditions. Beyond flood warning, ALERT technology has supported stormwater-quality monitoring, reservoir operations, dam safety, energy production, and other water-resource applications.

As monitoring networks expanded, limitations of the original ALERT communications protocol became increasingly important. Legacy ALERT did not provide error detection and could experience radio-message contention and data loss during intense rainfall and flooding events, when reliable information is especially critical.

To modernize the standard, the National Hydrologic Warning Council (NHWC), in association with AUG, developed ALERT2™. Announced in 2010, ALERT2 was designed to significantly improve the accuracy, speed, capacity, and reliability of communications within real-time environmental monitoring networks.

ALERT2 adds error detection and correction and uses Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) so stations transmit during assigned time intervals, greatly reducing radio-traffic contention. It also expands system capacity from approximately 8,000 individual sensors under legacy ALERT to as many as 65,000 sites with up to 255 sensors per site. The Source Address Management System (SAMS) supports the standard by providing a centralized process for assigning unique ALERT2 source addresses.

 

Coordination Between AUG and the National Hydrologic Warning Council

 

AUG works in close coordination with the National Hydrologic Warning Council (NHWC). Both are nonprofit organizations focused on helping officials protect communities and manage water resources effectively. Together, they support professional development and provide standards and guidance for implementing and using automated hydrologic data-collection and warning systems.

Their conferences, workshops, training opportunities, and technical collaboration bring together the hydrologic-warning community to exchange knowledge and strengthen the monitoring and forecasting capabilities that underpin emergency management and water-resource programs.

The development and continued advancement of ALERT2 exemplifies the relationship between AUG and NHWC: a collaborative effort to maintain an open communications standard that responds to the evolving needs of system owners and operators while allowing existing ALERT networks to transition progressively to newer technology.

Today…

AUG, NHWC, and the broader ALERT/ALERT2 community share a common purpose: connecting people, technology, and real-time information to improve hydrologic warning, strengthen water-resource management, support professional development, and help communities protect lives and property.

 

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