Summary

HOT is responding to severe flooding across southern and central Mozambique, partnering with INGD and UNICEF to deliver open map data that enables humanitarian actors to plan evacuations, target relief distribution, identify damaged infrastructure, and coordinate shelter, water, sanitation, and medical response. Since 23 January 2026, HOT has mapped 76,000 homes and 400 km of roads and is actively supporting 30 humanitarian organizations using this data on the ground.

Context

Since the start of 2026, severe flooding has engulfed southern and central Mozambique regions already weakened by repeated extreme weather events, including tropical storms, cyclones, and droughts. Floodwaters rose rapidly across the hardest-hit provinces of Gaza, Maputo, and central Mozambique, forcing families to flee without essential belongings, including identity documents.

The crisis compounds an existing humanitarian emergency: conflict in northern Mozambique displaced over 300,000 people in the second half of 2025, stretching national response capacity. The 2026 floods have since displaced a further 392,000 people and caused over 100 fatalities. An estimated 100,000 people are currently sheltering across approximately 100 temporary accommodation centers (schools, public buildings, and makeshift sites) with urgent needs across shelter, water, sanitation, and healthcare.

Responders face critical gaps in up-to-date spatial data needed to plan routes, prioritize communities, and allocate resources effectively across affected areas.

Approach

This response expands HOT's active mapping across three workstreams:

• Remote Mapping Operations. Continued mobilization of HOT's global volunteer network to trace buildings, roads, and infrastructure from satellite imagery, generating rapidly updatable base map layers that humanitarian actors can access and act on in near real-time.
• Regional Disaster Manager Support. HOT's Regional Disaster Manager provides embedded coordination support to humanitarian actors operating on the ground, ensuring map data is accessible, understood, and translated into operational decisions across the 30+ organizations currently using it.
• Drone Imagery Capture At the direct request of INGD, HOT is supporting the capture, processing, and cloud storage of drone imagery across impacted areas, providing high-resolution post-flood aerial views that improve damage assessment accuracy and response planning.

Based on further requests from INGD and UNICEF, mapping efforts will prioritize six locations: Cidade De Xai Xai, Guija, Chingoenene, Chibuto, Maracuene Macaneta, and Manhica – Josina Machel.

Outcomes

The project targets two measurable results:

• Reduction in spatial data gaps tracked as a percentage improvement in map coverage across affected regions, directly increasing the ability of responders to make informed, location-specific decisions
• Actionable drone imagery generated is measured in km² of imagery captured, processed and made available to INGD and humanitarian partners for damage assessment and response planning

Deliverables

• Map Data. Comprehensive building, road, and infrastructure data for priority localities in Gaza, Maputo, and central Mozambique, published openly on OpenStreetMap and accessible to all humanitarian actors at no cost.
• Six Priority Localities Mapped: Dedicated mapping of Xai Xai, Guija, Chingoenene, Chibuto, Maracuene–Macaneta and Manhica–Josina Machel as identified by INGD and UNICEF based on greatest humanitarian need.
• Drone Imagery. Captured, processed, and stored high-resolution aerial imagery of impacted areas; delivered to INGD to improve accuracy of damage assessments and inform response planning.
• Humanitarian Actor Support. Ongoing coordination by HOT's Regional Disaster Manager ensures 30+ partner organizations can access and operationalizeMozambique Floods Response map data for evacuations, relief distribution, and shelter and sanitation planning.