Community-Centric Urban Flood Early Warning and Response Platform

Objective: To empower low-income urban neighborhoods with real-time flood alerts and coordinated community response using open data and low-cost technologies.

Urban flooding poses a significant threat to millions in India’s rapidly growing cities, particularly affecting low-income and informal settlements with inadequate drainage and limited access to timely warnings. Extreme weather events, aggravated by climate change, have increased the frequency and severity of flash floods, leading to displacement, health risks, and property loss. This challenge directly aligns with SDG 13: Climate Action and supports local disaster management authorities.

This project proposes a community-driven digital platform that fuses hyperlocal rainfall and water-logging data from open sources and citizen input, delivering real-time flood risk alerts and mobilizing local response networks. The system will use low-cost IoT sensor data, public rainfall APIs, and a multilingual mobile/web interface to alert residents and connect them to emergency services and volunteers.

Key features include: automated flood risk alerts via SMS/WhatsApp, interactive flood mapping using OpenStreetMap, a crowdsourced incident reporting dashboard, and a community response coordinator module for rapid resource mobilization. The prototype will be piloted in at-risk urban wards, integrating feedback from residents and local NGOs for usability and impact.

Measurable impact includes faster evacuation times, reduced property loss, and improved community preparedness. The open, modular approach enables adaptation and scaling to other vulnerable urban geographies across India via civic organizations, municipal bodies, and disaster response networks.