Our core challenge lies in the lack of resilience to natural hazards, specifically the escalating risk of flooding in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This threat was dramatically highlighted by the over 5-meter flood in May-June 2024, which overwhelmed the city and impacted 46 out of 96 neighbourhoods, affecting roughly 157,000 people, which corresponds to 11% of residents. Porto Alegre is the capital and the largest city of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city was isolated for days due to transportation infrastructure collapse, causing risks of shortages of potable water, food, and medication for hospitals. The central problem is a profound communication and engagement failure, leading to thousands needing rescue by helicopters, boats or water motorbikes because they didn’t heed civil defence warnings, often due to the difficulty in interpreting simple data and the absence of smart community mechanisms. This challenge extends to operations: the lack of real-time, two-way, and unified situational awareness severely hinders the ability to dynamically map danger zones, locate people in need, and coordinate official agents and volunteers during the critical logistics of rescue and resource management.
