Landslides Riders

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdV1E-9f0wU

https://github.com/romavini/boka

Through the implementation of a chatbot, the project acts as a channel between the community and authorities, facilitating communication between them. The main features of the tool are:

• Register citizens so that they are notified in advance in case of emergency and thus they can prepare for a possible landslide event;
• Provide the registration of a support network that will be activated upon emergencies, optimizing the relocation and assistance of the affected population;
• Present guidance to users on how to proceed in emergencies, providing emergency telephone numbers and advising on shelters and resources made available by the support network or by the government;
• Allow the user to send images and videos, if he identifies a potential risk, in order to inform the responsible bodies and receive relevant information, which will help him to apply palliative measures on the spot, until the problem is effectively resolved;
• Regularly furnish, in accordance with user permission, general environmental content, with the main focus on mitigating measures to temporarily stabilize the risk of landslides, until a permanent solution is applied.

All these features will be available through a simplified and easily accessible interface, which can be transposed to different messaging platforms, covering a wider range of users.

There will also be a dashboard so that the information collected via chatbot can be viewed in a friendly and organized way by governments and entities. The dashboard will centralize landslide risk information through data obtained by Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM), and, additionally, will present a collaborative map of risk areas (reported by chatbot users) and a list of the support network.

Figure 1 - Dashboard Landslides Risks Tab

Figure 2 - Dashboard Community Network Tab

Figure 3 - Dashboard Support Network Tab

The system, as a whole, is an instrument that has the potential to protect human life, providing assistance and knowledge to people in vulnerable situations. It promotes the strengthening of community spirit through the mutual help of the support network and stakeholders and also provides relevant data for decision-making and promotion of better public policies.

The resources used for the development of the project are:

• The languages used for the chatbot are Python and JavaScript;
• Dashboard was developed in React with Ant Design library;
• Server on Node to run the application;
• Whatsapp Web Chatbot to intermediate community access to NASA data;
• TomTom API for Latitude and Address Longitude lookup;
• CEP API to search for CEP Latitude and Longitude;
• Requests Python library to collect polygon vertices from two NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) datasets:
• Slip risk analysis by the LHASA model;
• Precipitation accumulated in the last three hours;
• Shapely Python library to create the polygons and check if the user point is inside one or more polygons;
• Folium python library for plotting hazard points on the dashboard map.

Figure 4 - Chatbot conversation flowchart

Figure 5 - Chat interation in Whatsapp

We were fascinated by the amount of data that NASA opened, so much information, variables and resources to be used.

Reading the archive, the LHASA (Landslide Hazard Assessment for Situational Awareness) model shines our eyes. 

Developing a chatbot with rainfall data in Brazil is always a challenge, given that data capture is usually by states or regions, without federal standardization. However, in the model, we observe the availability of worldwide data covering this topic, the Global Precipitation Measurement domain.

Using the python library requests to NASA, we combined information about Precipitation and Landslide Risk to alert the population through the famous messenger app WhatsApp.

In the app we can ask for the location data of the person, establishing a channel to:  

• Receive informations of danger areas (that can be send to the local government);
• Send institutional information about landslides;
• To serve as a community emergency channel.

For many of the team it was the first time they participated in a hackathon, and this experience allowed us to learn to listen to each other and converge together for the same idea. Always focusing on the best points discussed in the meetings, we met mentors from the most diverse areas who guided us in the best way forward.

The city of one of the participants faces serious problems with landslides, and she brought this cause to the fore in favor of protecting communities living in risky areas. This motivation inspired everyone on the team (coming from different areas: environmental, electronics, civil construction, development and mathematics), thus boosting the application of each one's knowledge in the development of this project.

During the challenge, we were able to improve our teamwork, dividing the activities according to the skills of each one, managing the time according to the deadlines stipulated by the organization of the event and always striving for the spirit of union.

We could describe the Space Apps Experience in 2 words, “NetWork and Fun”, the experience and especially the people who engaged with us in the last 2 days will remain in our hearts for a long time.

We would like to thank teachers Viviane Japiassu Viana and Flavia Targa Martins for helping the team with information about websites and documents to use for initial research. To the mentors Eduardo Akira and Igor Steinmacher for the guidance and considerations made to our work. To professional Jaime Vendrame for sharing chatbot market knowledge and experience. And to all the organization of the event, we would like to thank you very much.

TomTom API

• Documentation;
• Tomtom Maps APIs License Agreement.

CEP API

• Documentation.

NASA GPM

• Maps;
• Landslides Risk (modelo LHASA);
• Precipitation.

Whatsapp Web Chatbot

• Documentation;
• Apache LICENSE 2.0.

Node

• Documentation.

#landslide, #data, #lhasa, #population, #governance, #nasa, #space, #moon, #brazil, #science, #southamerica, #earth

This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.