HazWatch

HazWatch Beta is a citizen-powered hazard reporting and geospatial mapping platform designed to support disaster awareness, environmental monitoring, and community participation across India.

The app allows users to report hazards and disaster-related incidents using GPS-based location selection, map interaction, uploaded field photos, and structured geospatial information. HazWatch helps create a more organized understanding of environmental hazards and disaster impacts through community-driven reporting and spatial data collection.

Users can report incidents such as landslides, flash floods, floods, urban floods, forest fires, avalanches, GLOFs, debris/mud flows, droughts, heat waves, cloud bursts, and other hazards.

Each report can include: • Hazard type
• Affected area categories
• Incident date
• Geographic location
• Uploaded photos
• Additional observations

Affected area categories include residential areas, roads, agricultural land, forests, public infrastructure, water bodies, commercial areas, industrial areas, and more.

HazWatch includes an interactive live map where users can: • Explore reported hazards geographically
• Filter incidents by hazard type
• View location-based hazard information
• Navigate hazard markers and incident locations

The app also provides location-based weather information to improve environmental awareness and situational understanding.

Key Features: • GPS-enabled hazard reporting
• Interactive geospatial hazard map
• Community-based reporting
• Hazard filtering and visualization
• Incident photo uploads
• Structured reporting workflow
• Real-time and retrospective reporting
• Multi-hazard support
• Bilingual support (English & Hindi)

HazWatch supports both current and historical reporting, helping improve spatiotemporal coverage of hazard information across India.

The platform is designed to support disaster awareness, community participation, geospatial research, environmental monitoring, hazard trend analysis, and future disaster-response initiatives.

Approved anonymized datasets may be shared with researchers through the in-app “Request Geospatial Data” system. Shared datasets exclude personal identifiers and are intended only for research, awareness, and civic-tech purposes.

HazWatch Beta combines geospatial technology, crowdsourced reporting, environmental awareness, and citizen participation to help build a safer and more disaster-aware India