As climate-related risks continue to impact urban environments, cities need better ways to understand territorial vulnerabilities and improve preparedness for extreme events. To support this effort, Lisbon implemented a centralized flood intelligence and climate data solution powered by City as a Platform, Google Maps, and Google Data Studio.
The platform aggregates multiple environmental and territorial datasets into a unified operational environment, helping the municipality improve flood risk analysis, strengthen urban resilience, and support future predictive capabilities.
This project made an important contribution toward centralizing and structuring an innovative flood risk prevention database at local scale, helping address the current challenges posed by climate change scenarios. It also helped redefine technical requirements for future environmental monitoring networks. With this project, Lisbon reinforced its position as a global, innovative, and sustainable city developed for people and with their involvement.
The Customer
Lisbon is the capital and largest city in Portugal, with more than 500,000 inhabitants distributed across 24 parishes.
Located along the Tagus River, the city combines dense urban areas, transport infrastructure, environmental systems, and a complex territorial landscape that increases exposure to climate-related risks.
Lisbon has been actively investing in innovation, sustainability, and resilience initiatives to support long-term urban development and climate adaptation strategies.
The Challenge
Due to its geographic and environmental context, Lisbon faces significant vulnerability to flooding events caused by heavy precipitation and tidal effects.
The municipality needed a solution capable of:
Centralizing flood-related information
Understanding historical flooding behavior
Identifying cause-effect relationships
Improving territorial awareness
Supporting climate adaptation strategies
Preparing future predictive flood models
Consolidating dispersed environmental datasets
The city also needed to improve understanding of how territorial organization, urban infrastructure, and environmental conditions influence flooding events.
As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, improving access to reliable environmental intelligence became increasingly critical.
The Solution
City as a Platform provided Lisbon with an integrated flood intelligence and territorial monitoring environment.
The solution combined:
A centralized flood data catalogue
Web-based geographic visualization
Analytical dashboards
Near real-time environmental data integration
Climate and territorial intelligence layers
The platform aggregates multiple data sources, including:
Meteorological information
Tidal data
Hydrogeology
Environmental and green infrastructure
Urban planning
Land use
Buildings and population data
Transport infrastructure
Digital terrain models
The solution was developed using City as a Platform together with Google Maps and Google Data Studio, creating a collaborative environment for environmental monitoring and territorial analysis. The project also supports Lisbon’s strategic commitments related to sustainability, participation, innovation, safety, and climate neutrality objectives.
The Results
Easier access to flood and environmental intelligence
Centralized and secure climate-related data repository
Elimination of fragmented and dispersed datasets
Increased reliability through automated data collection
Transparent access to relevant territorial information
Near real-time access to environmental and operational data
Improved support for flood analysis and future prediction models
Stronger foundations for climate resilience planning
A Smarter Approach to Urban Climate Resilience
With City as a Platform, Lisbon strengthened its ability to manage environmental intelligence and support long-term climate resilience strategies.
The platform now provides a centralized foundation for flood risk analysis, territorial awareness, and future predictive capabilities that support safer and more sustainable urban planning.
FAQ
Common questions
The project aimed to centralize flood-related information and climate data to support flood risk analysis, urban resilience, and future predictive models.
The solution integrated meteorological, tidal, territorial, environmental, hydrogeological, mobility, urban planning, and population datasets.
The platform centralizes and visualizes territorial intelligence in real time, helping cities improve monitoring, planning, and decision-making around environmental risks.
