PROMETHEUS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=888lJVigyc8

https://danakhang.github.io/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2KRiRWjX2_fOcmYmFelgANqAq5Ha6utOGzceoqCPIGCagY6SK_jK9gDak

What Inspired our team to choose this challenge?

Climate change is no longer a strange term in today's world. It causes serious damage to ecosystems, biodiversity, habitats... Each year, more than 5 million people die due to climate change impacts and it could wipe off up to 18% of GDP off the worldwide economy by 2050 if global temperatures rise by 3.2°C, the Swiss Re Institute warns.

However, damage from climate change is not always something that can be easily seen with just a glance. Therefore, there are many people who downplay this environmental disaster or even worse, they see it as just a conspiracy theory. Climate change affects each part of the world differently and depending on many factors, there are places that are less affected, but there are places that have to suffer extremely severe consequences. But one thing is for sure, in the not too distant future, we will all be affected by it in one way or another. Our mission is to act now.

Faced with these challenges, our team - PROMETHEUS, is determined to come up with an idea, solutions to help reduce the damage caused by environmental disasters, not only to people, but for the whole ecosystem and for the planet as a whole. So that we can not only get through this difficult period, but also thrive in adversity.

What is the PROMETHEUS network and its functions?

Climate change is a complex issue and it causes impacts on almost every aspect, from human life, ecosystems to the environment... Today, under the development of science and technology, we have collected huge stores of data related to climate change. These data, have great possibilities that can help us predict the disasters, the consequences as well as suggest solutions to reduce the damage caused by the environment on various aspects. But have we made good use of this data? Have we exploited their full potential? The answer is probably not.

To take a simple example, today, as we have noticed, there are hundreds to thousands of mobile applications that allow us to monitor weather phenomena, predict future events. However, each application goes in a different direction and aims to monitor different phenomena. Some apps monitor air quality, some warn about earthquakes, others warn about floods... They are all really helpful, but the real problem here is that there are too many of them, and this will confuse the user. It would be troublesome to have to download dozens of apps just to comprehensively monitor weather developments as well as warn of disasters and other related issues about the environment and climate change. This seriously affects the access to accurate and complete information to the masses.

Our ambition is to create a platform that allows users to access information in the fastest, most accurate, most comprehensive, most detailed way. Besides, design easy-to-use and easy-to-understand interfaces suitable for each audience and the goals they aim for when using the platform. From there, allowing users to capture the necessary information, especially in disaster events that require the speed and accuracy of information.

Here's how the PROMETHEUS platform works and what its functions:

1/ Comprehensive geographic atlas for past, present and future time points:

Similar to google map, however, the PROMETHEUS project adds weather-related data such as temperature, humidity, amount of sunshine, rainfall, cloud cover... forest cover, minerals in areas, crops, livestock... and a multitude of useful data that allows users to easily access not only for the present moment, but also these factors in past times as well as predictions of the future with just typing in the search bar factors to monitor. Moreover, in the future direction of the project, users can extract these data to serve their own purposes.

This comprehensive atlas has immense potential. It can be a place where scientists, students and enthusiasts extract data for scientific research and further improve the efficiency in using this data. It can serve educational purposes about geography, environment ... replacing boring charts and old data in textbooks. It can also be a place where people with simpler needs come just to monitor the weather with accurate figures and charts just in case they need it. In addition, it allows zoning of special areas, warning types of natural disasters. The database also allows the system to issue other types of warnings as well as provide simple solutions to combat weather extremes.

The potential of this atlas is almost limitless, depending only on our creativity and needs. However, for the purposes of this challenge, in the next section we will describe what the PROMETHEUS platform can offer to to help bring to light regions where marginalized populations are facing a higher burden from environmental hazards, lack of access to resources and opportunities, and design solutions to bring about equitable outcomes.

2/ Ability to localize areas that are heavily burdened by the negative effects of climate change:

Based on the data compiled in the above geographical atlas, although only with the rudimentary algorithm at the current level, we can localize the areas that are suffering from negative impacts and lack the necessary resources.

Based on weather data such as temperature, humidity, sunshine, rainfall and other social data such as population density, regional resources... We can localize areas that are or is likely to suffer serious damage.

For example, we localize areas that are flooded by relying on weather data, we can even predict the direction of floods based on factors like rainfall, amount of water upstream... to give warnings to users.

The system allows users to be alerted and capable of real-time monitoring and prediction for other types of disasters, such as Tornadoes and Severe Storms, Hurricanes and Tropical Storms, Wildfires, Earthquakes, Drought…

In addition to the natural elements, social data also allows us to localize the habitat of the poor, ethnic minorities, places that suffer great damage due to natural and social conditions.

All of this help bring to light regions where marginalized populations are facing a higher burden from environmental hazards, lack of access to resources and opportunities, and design solutions to bring about equitable outcomes.

Based on that specific and completely public information, we will have a more accurate view of climate change, know better about the painful things it has caused. From there, the whole community, combined with organizations and governments, will come up with the necessary solutions to help the people there and together rebuild the environment, improve the ecosystem and the physical infrastructure of those regions.

3/ The ability to create temporary disaters events in real time to bring people together against natural disasters:

Algorithms and infrastructure for disaster warning and prediction, we still develop them every day to increase speed and accuracy. But all of them are never enough, machines are still machines. From the past until now, we still have very fast and accurate natural disaster warning systems, but why is there still unnecessary damage? That is because such information is not quick and accurate to the extent necessary, they do not reach the people in a timely manner.

For example, in our hometown, Vietnam, in the last few months of the year, we experience an average of 5 to 6 storms and dozens of different negative weather events. We updated the weather several times a day during those storm events, yet so many people died and so much wealth was lost, not because of the inevitable but because of the information, the news did not arrive in time. Weather forecasts cannot give an accurate warning level for a specific area in just a few minutes. In some cases, flood water levels rise several centimeters in minutes and within hours it can rise several meters. What's more, for example, within a radius of just 2 kilometers, there are places where floodwaters have risen up to 3 meters, but in places the water level is just ankle-high, depending on the terrain. And also depending on the construction conditions of sewers in each place, in some places the flood water has receded after 3 days, in some places even though it is only 1 km away, the flood water has not receded after half a month. Weather forecasts are only at the most general level of warnings such as river level warnings, but cannot have information in such specific areas. Therefore, there have been many cases, people just watched the weather forecast, and when the flood water suddenly spilled down from upstream, they were unable to respond in time, many people were swept away by the flood water while on street, many others lost their possessions because the flood water rose so fast. And there was no one, or anything to warn them, in those sudden circumstances. Our homeland is a small city, Hue- Vietnam, and at one time, just because of the delay in information, the flood water rose so suddenly, no one could have predicted it, 600 people died, and more $1.5 billion in property damage compared to today's face value.

These incidents are, in fact, preventable. We need to develop an information system that is as fast and accurate as possible. To do that, the PROMETHEUS project uses human ability as a prerequisite.

For such extreme weather events, which in this case we will take flooding as a concrete example for ease of interpretation, PROMETHEUS' system will generate temporary disaster symbols associated with with the event taking place at that location. When we click on these icons, the system will update us with the data from the monitoring systems, monitoring as accurately as possible such as flood water level and its direction of increase or decrease. However, this is not enough, these temporary events will also create temporary channels where people can stay updated on the situation in their area. It is like a temporary forum where people can share information and exchange with each other by uploading status lines, photos and videos for the fastest situation updates.

For example, when unpredictable events such as flash floods occur, people living in upstream areas can immediately update the situation to this temporary forum, people downstream will immediately ie be warned. Because in less than a few minutes or half an hour, the floodwaters will flood downstream and wipe out everything on the road. Knowing in advance, even for a few minutes, or even seconds, can save lives and property.

To take another example, in developing countries like Vietnam, urban transport and drainage systems are very bad. Even though the flood has passed, the water will remain stagnant on the roads, for days or even weeks. There will be places where the water will recede after a few days, but at the same time, even though it may be only 1 kilometer apart, the flood water is still above a meter because the drainage system is blocked. These updates are extremely important and they come from people using the PROMETHEUS platform. We will get information about the roads to avoid passing. Because if you are unfortunate enough to go through that road, even though the water is only flooded in a 20-meter section, for example, traffic jams and damage to vehicles are inevitable.

In the future, we need to develop algorithms as well as ways for the exchange of information in these temporary "social networks" to be optimized, fastest, most accurate, carefully selected and avoid fake news. In the immediate future, we can imagine a mechanism for evaluating information by neighboring users. The fact that many nearby users appreciate the posted information will partly confirm that the information is true, combined with spatial observation data as well as measurement results by the local system will help reinforce that. Users are allowed to access all information, but formalized information will be especially alerted to users as soon as possible.

4/ Community network based on marked coordinate points as bearing the burdens related to climate change:

In addition to causing natural disasters with a higher frequency, climate change also severely affects many communities where the consequences are often overlooked because they are more indirect. For example, there are places where because of the consequences of climate change, the economy is affected, epidemics increase, crops fail... All of them will have long-term consequences and they are absolutely bad things for people as well as for the environment and ecosystems.

Relying on huge data sets, we can localize the places that bear these burdens. The data based on, of course, will be data on natural conditions and weather, as well as data on population, income levels, concentration of minority communities and the feelings of people...

It is essential to create an online network that allows users to share information with each other. There are things that only algorithms, data and machines can't diagnose, but must resort to real human experience. People can upload photos, videos, and share their experiences about the difficulties caused by climate change to this network in relation to the marked display points.

When others look at these shares, they will not only see the dry data on climate change, but they will also see the accounts of different people who have been there and experienced life there , for example bloggers, philanthropists, journalists, travelers, locals... The advantage of this social network is the visibility, ease of tracking and the relevance of the information. Based on the waypoints marked on the map, users can get an overview and visual information about the places that are suffering in the world. The assignment of these waypoints allows information to be highly centralized, and only relevant to the point where it is marked.

Establishing such a visual network will help information reach users more easily, users can also more easily monitor the situation in specific areas because information is not distributed. Moreover, our idea is to combine this information network with other platforms such as Google map and social networks such as Twitter, Facebook,... so that information can reach the community faster and easier.

This network has the potential to set trends on social media. And only when this wave is created, many people will come together to help each other cope with the effects of climate change, especially for communities that are really in serious difficulty.

Not only that, it will also help us have a more accurate and detailed view of the social problems that each place encounters. From there, individuals, communities, organizations and governments will have effective solutions to overcome these difficulties.

Moreover, this information along with the pressure of the community on this social networking platform will put pressure on organizations and governments, especially authoritarian governments (to some extent) , must take action and solve problems in places that are struggling because of climate change.

5/ High quality monitoring and forecasting system for weather and habitat:

Of course, a system related to climate change is indispensable for monitoring and forecasting the weather and habitat. However, with a huge and accurate data warehouse, the PROMETHEUS project has the potential to provide users with a high-quality forecasting and monitoring system.

Ordinary users who do not have high needs will get a system to monitor and forecast accurate environmental conditions, including weather, air quality, warning of natural hazards...

High-demand users have access to monitoring and forecasting with a high degree of accuracy, and can extract data for their own purposes. For example, they can rely on data on sunshine, temperature and cloud cover to monitor their home solar battery system. Farmers have an accurate weather forecast and disaster warning system that helps them get information proactively and quickly, so that they can prepare disaster response measures, crops will reduce the possibility of loss…

This system, based on weather data, air quality... helps to give certain warnings to users in the face of extreme conditions. For example, in case the user is in a city where the solar radiation level is high and the air is polluted that day, the system will warn him to put on a mask and apply sunscreen.

6/ System to support users in green solutions:

One of the areas worst affected by climate change is agriculture. Climate change increases the likelihood of crop failure. Thereby causing farmers to lose their properties, lack of supply for consumers, prices to be escalated, the economy to have problems, social security to be affected... “Agriculture is the leading source of pollution in many countries. Pesticides, fertilizers and other toxic farm chemicals can poison fresh water, marine ecosystems, air and soil. They also can remain in the environment for generations. Many pesticides are suspected of disrupting the hormonal systems of people and wildlife. Fertilizer run-off impacts waterways and coral reefs.” <worldwildlife.org>

Therefore, to help plant trees as well as reduce the burden on the large agricultural industry, PROMETHEUS system, based on a database of natural factors and plant species, can advise users in each specific area, which plants will thrive in which seasons and what kind of factors that plant needs. Just enter the appropriate coordinate point, the necessary data about the plants will be provided to the user. This is to encourage people to be able to grow their own plants in their own garden with the help and advice of "a smart assistant". Most of all, this will be extremely helpful for people in disadvantaged areas, where access to external resources, as well as food, is limited. Combined with warning forms, the system also allows users to have timely information to protect their garden against extreme and unexpected conditions.

Besides planting trees, we also designed this system to encourage users to use clean forms of energy. For example, by entering the coordinates of his house, a man can find out if it is suitable for him to install a solar panel system in his area (based on solar data), or should he use a wind power generation system (based on wind data) instead. Or to take another example, a man wants to have a barbecue on the weekend, but he doesn't know if it's sunny that day for him to use his solar cooker or not, then the PROMETHEUS system will help him know that based on the weather data. Supporting users to use such green energy will certainly reduce negative impacts on the environment, thereby improving the quality of life if clean quality models are replicated.

7/ Potential to become a network for people to exchange knowledge and join hands to protect the environment:

Similar to the use of a user connection network for the purposes of section 3 and 4, this network can also be used for users to check in and share their achievements and experiences for everyone so that together, we respond to climate change.

For example, they can post pictures of their garden or solar system, presenting methods and ideas to help them improve the efficiency of their model to the public.

This is similar to combining google map with pinterest but more specialized in environmental issues.

The Prometheus project is the simultaneous use of three different data sets: Environmental data sets; Social and Economic data sets and Crowd data sets. As a first step, we use the open data source from “openweathermap.org” to make a simple weather forecast program because this is almost an essential human habit. Then, data such as sunshine, solar radiation, temperature, humidity, precipitation, ... from NASA Prediction Of Worldwide Energy Resources (NASA POWER) through output file .CSV and GeoJSON support plotting graphs to predict the change of environmental factors under climate change and then find solutions. In addition, we have planned to exploit all the special data related to solar radiation to coordinate the reasonable locations to build an efficient solar panel system and will exploit more deeply. in this direction in the near future. The data from NASA POWER will be exploited and analyzed by us to serve the agricultural industry, including recommending the right time and crop variety as well as warnings about natural disasters that are not well understood by humans. NASA POWER is also our creative inspiration, in the future we will continue to develop this project with more help and positive impact on the community.

We are also finding the way to apply the Socioeconomic data resource from “sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu” to our apply to our project. Besides, we came up with the idea to create a crowdsourced data from the community of project users, this is the idea from the inspiration from the data provided by Nasa and more than we know that gathering data from the crowd will increase the detail, accuracy and reduce time.

Our experience with Space apps is really memorable, our team has only 3 members and most of our knowledge about data processing or website programming, mobile applications, etc approached before starting 2 day hackathon journey, which means that just a few days ago, our team had absolutely no knowledge of web creation and data processing.. Although it was difficult to process and understand data sources from Nasa and from outside as it was really our first project in this field, we learned a lot from getting acquainted with complex and huge data sources to working in groups scientifically and doing your best to learn and "hack" in less than 48 hours. What really inspires us is the value after we understand and process that data and how it helps us to draw our dream of making this project so that we can contribute and help a part for society and its development in combating climate change. Our team approached the project with little knowledge and had to determine what was the goal and which part we were best able to accomplish in a series of other projects. Our team had a lot of trouble reading and processing the data because they were so numerous and so vast that they weren't in our area of expertise. Therefore, with the goal of conquering those data, we have drawn a clear overview of the project's direction and are ready to invest time in developing the project in the long run.

Although our project could be very vast, limited capacity and time allowed us to complete this project on an illustrative level only. However, we see that this project is feasible for the future.

Visual Studio Code

Programming Language HTML, CSS, JavaScript and their library

Data from “openweathermap.org/api”

Data from NASA POWER | Prediction Of Worldwide Energy Resources

Data from Google maps

#spaceforchange #data #disater #globalwarming #web #connection #community #climatechange

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