Ahmedabad: The civic body is setting up a new, high-tech AI-based dashboard to predict and track heatwaves, floods, and climate related emergencies. This plan, led by Smart City Ahmedabad Development Limited (SCADL), marks a move toward preventing harm before it happens rather than cleaning up after a storm.The city has put out a “call for interest”—an early step to find firms with the right skills for the job. Right now, Ahmedabad’s data is “fragmented”, say officials. This means that facts about rain, air, and health lie with separate departments and databases. “This makes it hard for the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to see a crisis coming. The new plan will pull all this info into one ‘brain’, the Ahmedabad Urban Observatory,” said a senior AMC official who is part of the project.A key part of the plan is a forecasting engine. This tool uses machine learning — where computers learn from old data to find patterns — along with known meteorological laws to predict the weather. “It aims to give a 72-hour heads-up for storms or heat at the municipal ward level, which means giving warnings for specific neighbourhoods rather than the whole city at once,” said the official.To fight urban floods, the system will use 3D ground maps to show the city’s high and low-lying areas. This will help civic officials see where water will pool when heavy rain hits. “For heat, the tool will use satellite and ground sensors — linked devices that track heat in real time — to map heat stress across the city. This info will help send help to the most at-risk people,” the official further said.To warn of bad air days, the system will also track the Air Quality Index, a score of how clean the air is. It will use dispersion models — mathematical tools that show how smoke or dust spreads through the wind.All these risks will be displayed on one dashboard accessible to AMC staff. The system include a chat tool that speaks English and Gujarati. “When a threat hits a set limit, the system will automatically send texts or WhatsApp alerts to the right people based on standard operating procedures — the city’s playbook for what to do quickly,” states AMC’s ‘AI Based Climate Resilience Solution’ document.
