Monsoon

A proposal for a new, life-saving feature layer in Google Maps that allows citizens and city officials to collaboratively predict and prevent urban flooding.

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Inspiration: What if Google Maps could help prevent floods?

Our inspiration came from a simple question: What if the Google Maps app on our phones could do more than just help us navigate a city, but also help the city itself survive a crisis? In places like Hyderabad, the monsoon is an annual emergency. We envisioned a new feature within Google Maps where the millions of users on the ground could act as a real-time sensor network, reporting the first signs of trouble—like clogged drains—directly onto the map.

"Drishti: Monsoon" is our high-fidelity prototype demonstrating how this feature would work. It's not a standalone app; it's a vision for a new, specialized data layer in Google Maps designed for civic resilience.

How It Works: A Two-Way Information Bridge

Our proposed feature creates a seamless loop between the public and city authorities:

  1. Citizen Reporting: Any Google Maps user could long-press on a location and select a new contribution type: "Report Flood Risk." They could then tag it as a "Clogged Drain."
  2. Authority Dashboard: Our prototype represents the private dashboard that verified municipal officials (e.g., from the GHMC) would use. On this dashboard, they would see a live heatmap of all citizen reports. Crucially, only these authorized officials would have the power to act on this data by drawing official "Flood Risk Zones" directly onto the map.
  3. Public Alerts: These officially drawn zones would then appear on the public Google Maps app for everyone as a red, semi-transparent warning layer, helping them stay safe.

This system ensures data integrity—the public provides the raw data points, but only trusted authorities can issue official warnings.

Our Prototype

To bring this vision to life for the competition, we built a functional prototype. We started with the Google Maps Platform but pivoted to a fast, open-source stack (React, Vite, Leaflet) to rapidly develop this proof-of-concept. This allowed us to focus on demonstrating the core user experience and the unique interaction between citizen reporters and official responders.

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