National Center for Monitoring and Alerts for Natural Disasters (CEMADEN)

The National Center for Monitoring and Alerts for Natural Disasters ( Cemaden ) is a research unit responsible for preventing and managing government action in the face of possible natural disasters that occur in Brazilian territory .  This center is linked to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI).

On January 9 , 2012 , President Dilma Rousseff announced the creation of the National Emergency Technical Support Force , an organization that provides for coordinated work with Cemaden. On March 11, 2013 , Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Marco Antonio Raupp announced the transfer of Cemaden to the São José dos Campos Technology Park . 

Created in 2011 and initially installed in the city of Cachoeira Paulista , in the state of São Paulo , this center is responsible for managing the information emitted by meteorological radars, rain gauges and data from climate forecasts, passing the information on to the competent bodies throughout Brazil, aiming to anticipate possible occurrences of meteorological situations that could lead to the occurrence of a natural disaster. 

Cemaden became effectively operational on December 2, 2011, and since then has been issuing alerts to the National Center for Risk and Disaster Management (CENAD), assisting the National Civil Defense System . The Cemaden operations team works in a Situation Room with capacity for up to 25 analysts. Among the equipment in this room are a large video wall , a crisis cabinet equipped with teleconferencing systems , modern computers and a power supply system in case of a blackout .

Cemaden researchers and technologists work with satellite images and a range of high-tech equipment, such as weather radars, data collection platforms and soil analysis equipment , as a way of preventing events such as floods and landslides.

In 2021, it began to have a new " S-band " meteorological radar with entirely national technology capable of providing data on the formation of so-called cumulonimbus , dense clouds that cause voluminous storms and monitoring the size of water droplets and hail crystals , in addition to predicting the volume, location and time at which precipitation will occur .