Why This Work Matters

Mozambique's long coastline and nine major river basins make it highly exposed to climate disasters such as flooding. To manage these frequent crises, the government relies on its National Institute for Disaster Risk Management and Reduction (INGD), working through CENOE, its National Emergency Operations Center, to predict, prepare for, and protect communities ahead of a crisis.

Since 2019, INGD has partnered with different stakeholders to build a national early warning system, initially focused on drought and now expanding to floods and cyclones.

To close the data gaps identified, INGD/CENOE and FDC worked with HOT to strengthen government data systems and expand community-level mapping. Districts were selected for participatory field mapping based on high population density and gaps in existing OpenStreetMap data.

How the Project Was Implemented

Phase 1. Government Systems

To ensure long-term sustainability, this phase centered on building internal government capacity, with three core areas of focus:

• Technical Training: HOT hosted a national workshop for 23 staff from INGD and CENOE, training technical teams in open mapping workflows, drone imagery processing, and data analysis.
• Infrastructure Investment: A photogrammetry workstation and server were installed directly inside the INGD and CENOE offices, giving government teams the ability to process their own drone footage.
• Long-Term Ownership: National INGD/CENOE Staff were trained as potential open-mapping "champions" within their own ministries and agencies.

Phase 2 — Community Mapping

With government systems strengthened, HOT and FDC then worked directly with communities in Búzi, Chókwè, and Mapai.

• Field operations brought together community members and local government officials for training and participatory mapping sessions.
• Teams engaged local leadership, including traditional chiefs, headmen, district commissioners, church leaders, ward committees, local police, and district officers across the education, health, and agriculture sectors.
• Using mobile tools, the teams mapped schools, health facilities, water points, flood-prone roads, evacuation areas, local markets, and agricultural land.

Tools and Data Quality

Field teams used ODK Collect for structured data capture and OSMAnd for offline navigation. Data was tagged to the standard OpenStreetMap schema, linking to established OSM wiki and TagInfo references. Field data was uploaded in real time and passed through multi-tiered validation reviewed by government field spot-checkers, HOT's technical team, and experienced OSM mappers before publishing.

Putting Data into Action

Once the field data was collected, HOT's technical team converted it into decision-support maps and localized atlases for INGD's operational use. These included:

• Anticipatory Action Hotspots highlighting priority zones where early action is needed
• Service and Catchment Gaps showing where communities lack access to nearby emergency and relief facilities
• Isolation Risk and Resilience Mapping identifying communities at risk of becoming difficult to reach during a disaster due to damaged roads, river crossings, or limited alternative routes alongside the nearby services and evacuation routes that can help them cope

All of the underlying data was also published to OpenStreetMap open to every partner, government agency, and member of the public working on disaster response in Mozambique.

Next Steps

The project's next priorities include building the capacity of more technicians at the provincial level. HOT, INGD, and FDC's community mapping approach is expected to expand gradually into other disaster-affected provinces, including Gaza and Sofala, with the eventual goal of covering all provinces and districts.