When floodwaters rise, the engineers and operations teams responsible for protecting water infrastructure, road networks and community assets are often making critical decisions with very little hard data. Manual gauge readings, local knowledge, and post-event analysis have long been the tools of the trade.
Two major government inquiries into natural disaster management in Australia identified this gap as a problem worth solving at scale. The 2020 Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements - prompted by the catastrophic Black Summer bushfire season - and the 2022 NSW Flood Inquiry, following the devastating floods that swept through regional New South Wales, both recommended that governments invest in new technologies to improve natural hazard detection. In March 2026, the NSW state government acted on those recommendations with the launch of the Natural Hazards Detection System (NHDS) Program.
In March 2026, the NSW state government launched of the Natural Hazards Detection System (NHDS) Program
The $3.3 million program, led by the NSW Reconstruction Authority and administered by the Office of the Chief Scientist and Engineer, is now running field trials of early warning technologies across local government areas. Among the seven selected technologies are Kallipr's Spectra Water Level Sensors - robust, radar-based flood monitoring devices that are giving both councils real-time flood data for the first time.
The gap the program was designed to fill
Among the seven selected technologies are Kallipr's Spectra Water Level Sensors
The problem facing most regional infrastructure operators is not a lack of concern; it is a lack of instrumentation. Flood-prone road crossings, creek lines and low-lying assets go unmonitored between events. When a storm hits, teams rely on manual checks or wait for the water to recede before piecing together what happened. The questions that matter most in an emergency, where did water peak first, which assets are genuinely at risk, do our flood models reflect reality, go unanswered until it is too late to act on them.
This matters because of the consequences of poor information flow in both directions. Under-response puts communities at risk. Over-response - closing roads and redirecting resources based on incomplete data - carries its own costs, eroding community trust and straining already stretched operational budgets.
Shoalhaven and Clarence Valley are both councils that know flood risk intimately. Both regions have experienced significant flood events in recent years, and both are now part of the NHDS pilot with Kallipr's sensors deployed across high-risk sites in each area.
How the technology works
The sensor was submerged for one hour but recorded every rise, peak and recession in real-time
Kallipr's Spectra Water Level Sensors are non-contact radar devices that measure water height without physical contact with the water surface - a critical design consideration for equipment that needs to survive submersion and continue transmitting data through it. Paired with tipping-bucket rain gauges at each site, the system provides correlated water-level and rainfall data in real time, giving operations teams the context to understand not just what the water is doing but why.
The sensors are IP68-rated, certified to withstand full submersion, and connect via NB-IoT, the narrowband cellular standard well suited to the remote, low-signal environments where flood monitoring infrastructure typically needs to operate. Long battery life minimises maintenance requirements in the field, which matters significantly for teams managing assets across large, often difficult-to-access catchments.
The resilience of the hardware has already been tested in the field. In one recorded event, a sensor was fully submerged for over an hour during a rainfall event that delivered 269mm and produced a 3-metre peak. It recorded continuously throughout, capturing every rise, peak and recession in real time, and transmitting that data back to the council's operations team without interruption.
The full details of the Shoalhaven and Clarence Valley deployments are documented in Kallipr's flood monitoring case study.
The questions operations teams can now answer
The operational value of real-time flood data is best understood through the specific questions it enables teams to answer - questions that previously had no reliable answer during an active event.
Where did water peak first? With sensors across multiple sites, councils can observe the progression of a flood event across their network in real time.
Which assets are genuinely at risk? Rather than applying a precautionary blanket response, teams can direct resources to sites where sensor data confirms rising water levels, to support response decisions, and for longer-term planning and model validation.
Do our flood models match reality? This is perhaps the most consequential question for teams managing long-term flood risk. Real-world sensor data provides the evidence base to test, calibrate and improve flood models, a capability that has historically required expensive, temporary gauging campaigns.
Government investment signals a shift in approach
The NHDS Program is significant not just for the councils involved, but for what it signals about how the Australian Government is thinking about natural hazard preparedness more broadly. Its design, running competitive field trials across real council environments and giving technology providers the opportunity to prove effectiveness to emergency management agencies, is a deliberate effort to accelerate the pathway from promising technology to mainstream procurement.
"These systems aren't just impressive pieces of engineering; they're about saving lives. By giving families and first responders precious extra minutes to act, they will make a real difference when danger strikes," said the Minister for Innovation, Science and Technology, Anoulack Chanthivong
Minister for Recovery Janelle Saffin was equally direct about the program's intent: the goal is not just to rebuild after disasters, but to give first responders and communities the one resource that matters most in an emergency - time.
Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte, NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer, noted that the program serves a dual purpose: making the state safer from fires and floods, while also driving product development in field conditions and bringing potentially lifesaving technologies closer to commercialisation.
A model for regional operators
What makes the NHDS deployments particularly instructive for other infrastructure operators is not just the technology, it is the deployment model. Rapid installation, NB-IoT connectivity that does not depend on existing infrastructure, and hardware designed to survive the conditions it is monitoring all point to a solution that scales across regional areas across the globe, without the lengthy procurement and installation timelines that have historically made environmental monitoring feel out of reach.
The implications extend beyond emergency flood response. For water utilities and infrastructure managers working to validate catchment models, meet growing regulatory expectations around asset risk data, or build a defensible evidence base for capital planning decisions, a continuously operating sensor network that survives submersion events and transmits from remote sites represents a meaningful shift in what is operationally possible.
The data from the pilot will be assessed by emergency management agencies over the coming seasons. But for Shoalhaven and Clarence Valley, the two councils now running Kallipr's sensors across their high-risk sites, the value is already clear: when the rain starts and water begins to rise, they are no longer flying blind.
More information on Kallipr's involvement in the NHDS Program is available at kallipr.com/nhds-flood-monitoring-program.
