🌱 Environment

Río Choluteca Real-Time Flood Sensor Network (Sistema de Alerta Temprana)

The Alcaldía Municipal del Distrito Central (AMDC) runs a Sistema de Alerta Temprana using laser water-level sensors on streams through the capital. In April 2024 it added its fourth sensor, on the Río Choluteca at the El Chile bridge — funded, according to independent press, by a USAID donation — joining earlier units on Quebrada La Orejona, Río Chiquito and Quebrada La Salada. Each bounces a laser off the water and relays readings in real time over SIM cards obtained through Conatel to servers that issue graphs, bulletins and public alerts. The four cover a fraction of the roughly 80 flood-prone points El Heraldo reports AMDC has mapped citywide.

Live 📅 since 2024

🤖 AI-generated summary of the sources below — how this works · 🔎 Last verified 2026-08-02

🌱 Environment Flood resilience Water Sensors & IoT Safety & security

🎓 Lesson

It is still a warning-only system: the sensors publish readings and alerts, but closing roads or evacuating is left entirely to people acting on that information, not to any automatic trigger.

Evidence• No measured figure

Scale🏙️ City-wide

📖 Terms in this entry: Non-revenue water (NRW) · Adaptive traffic signals · ANPR (automatic number-plate recognition)

Sources

↗ AMDC (authority)Official regional development repository detailing hazard mitigation layouts.

↗ AMDC (authority)Official page by the city or public authority behind the project.

↗ El Heraldo (press)News coverage of the project.

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed above and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇲🇱 OpenStreetMap Bamako Decentralized Mapping · Bamako Two low-cost flood tools: Bamako mapped flood-prone drains with volunteers (2020-22); Tegucigalpa wired laser river sensors in 2024. 🇨🇴 SIATA Early Warning Network · Medellín Same genre - warn, don't act: SIATA's cameras once caught a fatal flood live with no closure; Tegucigalpa's sensors are warning-only too. 🇩🇰 Copenhagen Bathing Water Forecast & Overflow Warning System · Copenhagen Both warn instead of enforcing: Copenhagen forecasts bathing risk from sewer data; Tegucigalpa's laser sensors just relay flood readings. 🇵🇹 Lisbon Drainage Master Plan Sensors · Lisbon Contrast in scale: Lisbon's plan carries a EUR250M budget for tunnels alone, Tegucigalpa's laser sensors cover 4 of roughly 80 flood points.

Explore the wider context

📟 A Reading Is Not a Decision 🌊 Flood resilience guide 🏙️ Tegucigalpa city profile 🌱 Environment projects

📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Río Choluteca Real-Time Flood Sensor Network (Sistema de Alerta Temprana)” — Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/tegucigalpa-flood-alert/ (last verified 2026-08-02). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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