Open source, MIT licensed · Built in Gilgit Baltistan
Prevention that arrives before the flood does.
CryoHealth turns satellite data on rising water and weather into early alerts for community health workers, with the prevention guidance already on their phone. It works with no internet, because that is exactly when it is needed.
Hazard data is live. The mobile app is in field testing with community health workers in Gilgit district.
The challenge
When the road closes, the guidance stops.
Gilgit Baltistan holds more than 3,000 glacial lakes. Thirty three are classified as critical outburst risk by Pakistan’s NDMA and ICIMOD. When a flood comes, the damage does not end with the water. Roads are cut, clinics lose their supply lines and waterborne disease moves through the community in the days that follow.
The guidance that would prevent most of that already exists. Advice on avoiding contaminated water, on handwashing, on managing diarrhoea in young children is well established and published by WHO and Pakistan’s NHSRC. It simply does not reach the valley at the moment it is needed.
Community health workers are often the only health resource for days, with no internet and no doctor to call. They are working from memory while children under five bear the worst of it.
- Glacial lakes across Pakistan's north
- 3,000+
- Classified as critical outburst risk
- 33
- Doctor to population ratio in mountain districts
- 1 : 1,300
- Major flood events since 1994
- 35
How it works
Four steps, built to work when everything else fails.
Prevention first. Response second. Each layer is designed to keep working when bandwidth, electricity or roads do not.
Pipeline
- 01
Watch
Daily imagery from ESA Copernicus Sentinel 1 and 2 and NASA MODIS is processed into a risk score for every monitored lake and catchment.
- 02
Alert
When risk crosses a threshold, health workers receive a plain instruction, not a number: caution, possible outbreak of diarrhoea, mobilise water sanitation methods.
- 03
Prepare
A full prevention library on safe water, hygiene and disease control lives on the device and refreshes whenever the worker connects at a health post.
- 04
Respond
If an emergency still hits, the worker registers a case. The app works offline to suggest possible diagnoses and care steps for the emergency at hand.
What’s inside
Built for the people closest to the risk.
Hazard map
Interactive map of glaciers, lakes, and downstream facilities with live risk tiers.
Open hazard mapAlerts feed
Chronological feed of hazard alerts with estimated impact windows and downstream populations.
View alertsOpen data API
Public read-only endpoints for lakes, alerts, and KPIs — anyone can build on it.
Read API docsCHW workspace
Lightweight case capture, offline-first, with role-based access for community health workers.
CHW sign-inAdmin controls
For CryoHealth admins and facility admins: inventory, role management, and audit-ready data.
Admin panelBilingual UI
English and Urdu interface, designed for low-bandwidth devices used in the field.
Get started
Pick the path that matches your role.
Explore the platform
- 1Open the live dashboard for current risk overview.
- 2Browse the hazard map and recent alerts.
- 3Query the open data API for research or journalism.
Triage cases offline
- 1Sign in with your CHW account.
- 2Capture cases in the field — syncs when online.
- 3Use the AI assistant for triage and dosing guidance.
Coordinate response
- 1Sign in with the cryohealth_admin or facility_admin role.
- 2Manage glacier and lake inventory.
- 3Issue alerts and monitor downstream impact.
Open source
Built in the open. Free to fork.
CryoHealth is released under the MIT License. Code, database schema and sample data are public, so any health programme, ministry or research group can audit it, fork it and run it in their own valley without asking us and without paying us. Anonymised case data, alert logs and hazard observations are published under CC BY 4.0 through public endpoints.
Under our funding agreement with the UNICEF Innovation Fund we do not charge for hosting, deployment, implementation, customisation, maintenance, support, training or service level agreements associated with CryoHealth. There is no commercial edition and no paid API tier.