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

Old bridges once showed Tegucigalpa's flood risk in painted marks. Since 2024, four laser sensors phone in real-time river levels — a fraction of the city's ~80 mapped flood points.

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The Alcaldía Municipal del Distrito Central (AMDC) runs a Sistema de Alerta Temprana using laser water-level sensors on streams through the capital — an acute concern in a city whose Choluteca river basin was devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. In April 2024 it added its fourth device — the first sensor directly 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 to servers that issue graphs, bulletins and public alerts; the readings now feed SIMET, the municipality's public monitoring portal, whose stations also log rainfall, wind and air quality. The chain is in real use: the city's yellow alerts in the 2025 rainy season were declared, in its own words, on the basis of SAT station reports. The four river sensors still cover a fraction of the roughly 80 flood-prone points El Heraldo reports AMDC has mapped citywide.