Deploying blockchain to mitigate natural disasters

CHENNAI: Rain, rain go away., come back another day! Think again before we say this anymore. Disturbing scenarios of modern cities, including the capital under water makes our hearts cry out albeit cautiously… the tears may add to the deluge!

The actions of humanity over the next decade will determine the future of our planet, its ecosystems, and the species that inhabit them. The time for preventive measures has passed, and intelligent reactive measures are now required to combat the human-created feedback loops that are exacerbating climate change. To have any chance of effectively responding to them, we must be aware of them as early as feasible.

The blame games have begun and damage control stepped up, but the damage has been done. We have once again fallen woefully short of calling our cities world class. But there is a silver lining - technology and we can leverage it optimally to mitigate such disasters in the future. Let me show you what we are building - right here in India and for the world! A blockchain-enabled platform to combat this issue leveraging machine learning and a robust blockchain network.

In India, we, a bunch of passionate individuals and myself have created a unified platform for environmental data - a one-stop resource for the planet’s most important measurable factors. The ecosystem will revolutionise how we collect, interpret, and disseminate massive amounts of environmental data.

Using data points from mobile phones we collect data on deforestation, coastal erosion, water levels, and species observation. Once collected, we group, validate and organise the data using several AI stages removing inaccurate observations, grouping similar ones and extracting patterns for a meaningful picture.

This data is committed to the blockchain making it accessible to all. Researchers are empowered to create complex reports and tech companies can build on this data layer, provide NGO’s and governments with a global repository of verified and accurate data who can then use predictive analytics to create models of relevance for predicting weather patterns.

By incorporating high-quality data streams from universities, research organisations, and other institutions thus ensuring that results are thorough, exhaustive, and data source are trustworthy and adhere to existing scientific standards and practices. Combine these input methods with the analysis capabilities of our AI, the reliability of our consensus methods, and the ease of access to the resulting blockchain data, and we have a fast, borderless, and accessible way for anyone to see and comprehend what is happening on our planet.

From a flooding perspective, this solution aids in predicting the early occurrence with an efficient output probability. This project’s output provides an accurate and approximate flood prediction probability percentage. Post prediction, it sends a warning or alert to the affected area, allowing them to take the necessary precautions. If this were to occur, flood victims could be saved, and death and property losses could be reduced in an efficient manner.

There’s still time to save our environment, but we have to act now. Join us in this crusade. For we have all but one life and one earth!

​(The writer is founder, India Blockchain Alliance)