The instant innovation presents a real-time environmental-sensing platform and system and method for water level monitoring, reporting and human warning. The platform, system, and method monitors rising water levels throughout a given geographical area and provides real-time and trending data on flooding and flooding risks. The instant innovation utilizes an environmental sensing platform comprised of a plurality of sensor nodes that may be geographically dispersed for both collecting environmental data on a regular or variable-frequency schedule, and transmitting the environmental data. The instant innovation further utilizes one or more wireless communication protocols configured to receive and transmit the environmental data, a cloud platform configured to receive, store, analyze and support real-time stream processing of the environmental data and generating environmental data reports thereof, and an external device for receiving, relaying and/or displaying report and alert information received from the cloud platform.