We turn environmental science into practical early-warning and decision support for humanitarian response and resilience.
Through our volunteer-powered community, Blu-H turns publicly available scientific and environmental data into practical early-warning information. Our work helps local communities, national agencies and humanitarian organisations act earlier and make better-informed decisions when climate-related hazards threaten.
Our programmes address three connected parts of humanitarian flood intelligence: preserving reliable historical data, improving flood prediction and making complex information easier to use in the field.
Complete and continuous flood archive helps researchers and responders understand how floods develop, compare events over time and improve future analysis and preparedness.
The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) official VIIRS flood-data archive is hosted on its NOAA Open Data Dissemination (NODD) platform, with composite flood maps dating back to 2012, but the record is incomplete. This incomplete record from 2021-2023 was partly filled by near-real-time data produced by the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC), and is made publicly available and archived by George Mason University (GMU).
Due to access issues with the GMU repository Blu-H is working to make both the NOAA NODD and SSEC data in a more cloud-friendly environment, allowing researchers and responders to access data through an open STAC catalogue hosted on Microsoft Planetary Computer Pro.
The Model of Models, or MoM, is a flood-detection tool developed by NASA’s Earth Applied Sciences Disasters Program and has been available through the DisasterAWARE platform since 2022 and supports users around the world.
Current outputs can be difficult to interpret at the level needed for local operational decisions. Blu-H is helping to enhance MoM by developing more detailed outputs, introducing fail-safe mechanisms and improving the reliability and usefulness of the information it provides.
Over time, we aim to make the tool easier for NGOs, national agencies and local partners to access, understand and use, helping them make faster and better-informed decisions before and during flood events.
Mobile Mapping for
Field Teams
Flood-Claw
Large and complex mapping files can be difficult to open on mobile devices, particularly in areas with limited connectivity.
Blu-H created Flood-Claw using OpenClaw to convert large GeoJSON files into lightweight formats and small image previews. These can be shared through WhatsApp or Telegram, helping field teams access and review mapping information in real time.
Flood-Claw site coming soon