Where the water is
Street flood sensors, the deepest spots right now and what that depth means for a car or a motorbike.
- How deep is it?
- Deepest sensors now
- Critical at 20 cm or more
- Flooded roads from the community
AugmaLive · refreshed every 5 minutes
Bangkok Situational Map. Where the water is, and where it goes next.
One free map for the flood: depth, roads to avoid, rain, canals, shelters, free parking and help requests, for Bangkok and the provinces around it.
- Free
- No sign-up
- Thai · English
- Any phone
- Works offline
Right now
What the map sees at this moment.
The city, live
Every district, as the map sees it.
updated …
- Danger 0
- Warning 0
- Watch 0
- flood sensor (size = depth)
Rain, rivers, dams
What's coming, and where the water goes.
At the height of it
The most extreme hours the map has seen.
0.0 cmdeepest street water recordedChatuchak · 27 Sept, 18:00
0help requests open at onceBang Kapi 1,298 · 29 Sept, 13:00
0.0 mmheaviest 24-hour rain at one gaugeBang Nam Priao · 28 Sept, 20:00
0districts with water 20 cm or deeper27 Sept, 17:00
From the map's hour-by-hour history (the last 48 hours); earlier peaks are kept. The BMA street sensors stopped updating early on 29 Sep, so depth readings after that stay flat.
Impact
What one small map did for a flooded city.
1,637times the map was opened in a single day29 Sep · the map's own usage analytics
24 hfrom idea to a live, public mapbuilt and deployed
0 ฿for anyone to use, no sign-upfree
The story spread · Instagram reel · 3 days
61,192views, from 49,010 viewers
90.3% were not followers: the story travelled far beyond the people who knew us
- 2,058shares
- 1,176saves
- 2,696likes
- 72comments
- 4,203accounts engaged
- 230new follows
2,058 shares and 1,176 saves: people passing the map to someone they worry about, and keeping it for the next day.
And what the map is carrying for the city right now
- …help requests on the map
- …of them marked done
- …shelters people can find
- … kmof flooded road to steer around
- 7provinces covered
- 13public sources in one place
Usage tracking began 27 Sep 16:57, a day after the map went live; counts are browsers, not people.
The problem
In a flood, the answers are scattered.
Too many sources
Sensors, rain gauges, shelters, traffic and SOS calls each live on a different site, in a different format.
Hard to act on
A reading in centimetres doesn't tell you whether to drive, where to park or which shelter still has room.
Changes by the hour
Water moves, rain arrives and roads close faster than a daily update can keep up with.
The map brings it into one place, turns it into plain answers (avoid, go, park, shelter) and keeps it current every 5 minutes.
How it started
A visual experiment, built and live in 24 hours.
It began as Bangkok drawn as a 3D holographic map, an experiment in showing a whole city's situation at a glance. Then people started using it during the flood, so we kept going: layer by layer, from the sources people told us they needed, until it became a tool to plan a day around the water.
A day on the map
Morning, the water is rising. Here is how people use it.
06:30
The city, at a glance.
Before anything else, one screen: the deepest water, people asking for help, traffic and rain, each with a short note on what it means, and where every number comes from.
06:35
Then, your own street.
Share your location, only if you choose, and see what is happening near you, the closest shelter and help. Nothing is stored.
06:40
What to avoid today.
Districts ranked by water, rain, traffic and SOS calls nearby, with the reason shown. Roads reported flooded or jammed are drawn in red, named, so you can plan around them.
06:45
How deep is it, really?
Centimetres are hard to picture, so every reading is drawn next to a car, a person, or a motorbike: above the door sill, knee-deep, engine flooded.
06:50
A map anyone can read.
Red is danger, yellow a warning, blue is water, and every symbol is explained. Tap any point, a sensor, a shelter or a road, to see what it means and how to get there.
07:00
Before you set off.
Check your route against the water, and the rain for the next few hours, area by area, so you know when to leave and when to wait.
Later
Somewhere safe to stay, and to park.
Temporary shelters, nearest first, and whether they are full. Free high-ground parking, with the dates each offer ends.
Later
Who to call, and how to get around.
Emergency and help lines in one list, tap to call. Which train lines run and which exits flood, so the day can still go on.
Evening
Let people know you're okay.
Send ‘I'm safe’ or ‘please check on me’ to family and friends, and simple steps for home, driving, elderly family, pets, and after the water goes down.
Screens captured from the live app; the numbers are from the moment of capture.
Three streams, one map
Government data, people on the ground, and AI, woven together.
How thirteen sources become one calm mapdrag to turnOpen full screen →
Government dataReports from peopleNews read by AIEvery dot is a real report or reading, falling from top to bottom: through each source's door, collected, read and weighed by K.A.R.A, anything unreliable purged, and what's left placed as a pin on the map of Bangkok.
Open the data visualization full screen →
Government and public agencies
Measured, official, sometimes slow.
- Street flood sensors (BMA)
- Rain gauges (BMA, ThaiWater)
- River and canal gauges (ThaiWater)
- Satellite flood points (GISTDA)
- Shelters, traffic, dams, tides
People on the ground
Fast, local, needs checking.
- Help requests (Traffy Fondue)
- Community road reports (Floodboard)
- Ground reports on the map
- ‘Is this wrong?’ flags
- Traffic incidents (iTIC)
AI
Reads and summarises, never invents.
- K.A.R.A daily summary, every 3 h
- News and alerts sorted, latest first
- Hourly news → map points for nearby provinces
- District ranking: water · rain · traffic · SOS
One map, checked every 5 minutesSources cross-check each other; if one fails, the map keeps its last good data and says so.
Counts are what the map holds right now
People helping people
A living twin of the city, kept true by the people in it.
Sensors and public data give the map its shape. People give it the truth on the ground. Every report, photo or ‘this is wrong’ makes the map a little more accurate for the next person, who can then avoid a road, find a shelter, or help someone nearby.
It borrows an idea from games where strangers leave help along the road for people they will never meet: small kindnesses that connect, and add up. A chain of positivity, one report at a time.
- 01See it
Water on your street, a shelter that's full, a road that's clear.
- 02Share it
Report in about 30 seconds, with a photo if you like.
- 03The map learns
Reports and flags feed the district levels and trends.
- 04Someone is helped
They avoid a road, reach a shelter, or answer ‘Can you help?’
- 05They pass it on
And share what they see in turn.
K.A.R.A's part
An AI that summarises, never invents.
K.A.R.A, our own AI assistant, writes the map's ‘AI summary of the day’ every three hours, only from the data the map itself has published, so what it says can always be traced back to a sensor, a gauge or a report. Alongside it, an hourly AI pass reads the last day of news and turns it into map points for the provinces around Bangkok.
The map itself was built with AI-assisted coding, which is how it went from idea to live in 24 hours.
Meet K.A.R.A →Noticed
Ulrich Buckenlei wrote about the map on LinkedIn: how AI-assisted coding and open data (BMA, Traffy Fondue, iTIC/Longdo, Open-Meteo, OpenStreetMap) produced a working 3D situational map during the flood, and why operational trust still depends on current data, clear labelling of uncertainty and careful validation.
What it can do
Everything you need on a flood day.
What to avoid
Districts and roads ranked by water, rain, traffic and nearby SOS calls, for now and for the rest of today.
- Districts to avoid, ranked
- Roads to avoid
- Check my route
- Traffic, incidents and live cameras
Rain and rivers
Rain gauges, the next 12 hours of forecast, radar, canal and river levels, dam releases and the next high tide.
- Raining now and last 24 h
- Rain radar
- Canals over the bank
- Chao Phraya Dam release and tides
Where to find help
The nearest shelter (and whether it is full), free high-ground parking, medical, shuttle and food points, and hotlines you can tap to call.
- Nearest shelter, full or not
- Free high-ground parking
- SOS requests nearby
- Hotlines · tap to call
People on the ground
Report what you see in about 30 seconds, with a photo if you like, or flag something that looks wrong. Photos are resized and their location data removed.
- Report what you see
- Photo reports
- Is this wrong?
- Share your status with family
Stay ahead
Alerts for an area you care about, a daily AI summary written only from the map's own data, and news and official notices, latest first.
- Alert me if…
- AI summary of the day
- News and official alerts
- Search any district or province
Works for everyone
Free, no sign-up, Thai and English, high contrast, keeps the last data when you lose signal, and installs to your home screen.
- Any phone, 2D Lite
- 3D city view on desktop
- Works offline
- Add to home screen
Built on public data
13 sources, checked every 5 minutes.
Everything refreshes in the cloud, day and night. A separate check watches every source for freshness; if one fails, the map keeps its last good data and says so.
- BMA flood sensors and rain gauges
- BMA shelters and service points
- ThaiWater
- Open-Meteo
- RID dam data
- GISTDA flood extent
- Traffy Fondue
- Floodboard
- iTIC / Longdo traffic
- BMA traffic cameras
- RainViewer
- GDACS
- News
Covers Bangkok, Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan, Pathum Thani and Samut Sakhon, and the edges of Nakhon Pathom and Chachoengsao.
Is it working?
Every source, checked every five minutes, shown as it is.
What we learned
Three days of building in the middle of a flood.
Speed matters more than polish.
A plain map that is live today helps more than a beautiful one next week. We shipped in 24 hours, then improved it in public, hour by hour.
Sources go quiet. Say so.
The street sensors stopped updating early on 29 September. The map kept their last good readings, marked them as old, and leaned on rain gauges and people's reports.
People are the best sensors.
Help requests, community road reports and photos filled the gaps no instrument could. The map's job is to make sharing take seconds.
AI should summarise, not speak for the city.
K.A.R.A only writes from data the map already shows, and every AI line can be traced back to a source. Where AI helps most is sorting a flood of news, fast.
Numbers need a picture.
‘52 cm’ means nothing at 6 am. ‘Above the door sill of a car’ does. Every reading is drawn next to something people know.
A community tool, not an authority.
We point to official lines on every screen. The map helps people decide; the authorities still decide for the city.
What's new
Updates to the map
v2.136Version 2.136 of the 2D map, with refinements to the 3D view.
Coverage grows beyond Bangkok: Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan, Pathum Thani and Samut Sakhon, with districts, rain, canals, incidents and reports.
Flood pages for search, in Thai and English, so people find the map when they search for flooding.
The map now refreshes itself in the cloud every 5 minutes, day and night.
Push alerts for an area you save, a photo report from the ground, and an ‘Is this wrong?’ flag on every area.
New layers: canal and river levels, Chao Phraya Dam release, the next high tide and rain radar. Free parking, medical, shuttle and food points join the Help layer.
FAQ
Is the Bangkok Situational Map free?
Yes. It is free, needs no sign-up and works on any phone.
How often does the flood map update?
The data refreshes in the cloud every 5 minutes; shelter status every 15 minutes.
Is this an official flood warning?
No. It is a community tool built from public data. In an emergency call 1669 (medical), 1784 (DDPM) or 1555 (BMA).
Which areas does it cover?
Bangkok, Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan, Pathum Thani and Samut Sakhon, and the edges of Nakhon Pathom and Chachoengsao.
It started with one question: where is the water?
It is still being built, one layer at a time, from what people on the ground tell us they need. The next chapter is in the updates above.
A community tool, not an official warning. Emergencies: 1669 (medical) · 1784 (DDPM) · 1555 (BMA).