This Chinese academic paper was first published in English in October 2013. The project under discussion appears to be a large, well-funded research project, so significant resources have apparently been invested in its production. It has produced some useful results, summarized in this paper.

The authors are eight intellectuals from a range of Chinese tertiary institutions. The English is generally good, and the prior work on which the paper is based is described clearly. Directions for future work are provided. Some flaws in the construction of English sentences mean that occasionally a critical sentence is not quite clear.

A prototype system in one stream catchment area is described; information is gathered from a range of remote sensing devices, transported using the Internet, and processed using big data methods in a central processing facility. In this way, the system produces an assessment of the probability and impact of an impending flood.

The use of the Internet of Things (IoT) for collecting environmental information is not new. The approach taken by the authors to collate and make use of this information is novel and worthy of further study (as outlined in the paper’s concluding paragraph).

The American Psychological Association (APA) style of citing references is used throughout. The illustrations are appropriate and colorful, though the ability to read Chinese text would be useful in order to fully appreciate them.

In summary, this paper is recommended reading for information technology (IT) specialists with an interest in broad-based information collection and people with a professional interest in predicting natural disasters.