capybara geek center

Frequently Asked Questions

What Capybara Center is, what it isn't, and how to get involved.

Capybara Center empowers people and communities through code. We build open Earth-observation models, write traceable situation reports, and publish everything under permissive licenses so anyone can read, fork, and improve the work.

About Capybara

What is Capybara Center?

An independent, volunteer-led, open-science project that turns satellite and forecast data into early-warning analyses for climate and environmental risk. We publish situation reports on the portal, release every model as open code on GitHub, and welcome volunteers who want to learn the tools and contribute reports for places they care about.

Who is behind it?

Capybara Center was founded in 2024 by Alejandro Feged-Rivadeneira, Ph.D. — a researcher in climate change, human ecology, and knowledge translation. A small core team handles the models and editorial review; a growing network of volunteers runs the analyses for additional countries and writes situation reports. See the About page for the full team.

Is this a company, an NGO, or a research group?

None of the above. Capybara is a personal-project-turned-volunteer-collective. The code is MIT-licensed and lives on GitHub; the situation reports live on this portal; the volunteer collaboration runs informally. If you want to support the work financially, sponsor a country, or commission a custom analysis, get in touch — we have a 2-pager describing how partner engagements work.

What we publish

What kind of situation reports do you publish?

Real-time and short-horizon (1-15 day) risk reports on floods, wildfires, heatwaves, and related hazards. Each report combines the latest satellite observations and weather forecasts with a Bayesian risk model, names the specific places and infrastructure at risk, and triangulates against media reports from the affected region. See the situation report archive.

How often are reports updated?

Reports go out when there's something to say — typically when a hazard is emerging, when forecast skill says something actionable, or when a partner organization asks. We are working toward a scheduled-runs regime (daily updates for priority countries) but we are not there yet. For now, follow the portal or subscribe.

Are these official warnings?

No. Capybara reports are independent analyses for situational awareness and planning. We complement, never replace, official alerts from national meteorological services (IDEAM, AEMET, IPMA, NOAA, Météo-France, etc.). If an official alert is in effect, the official alert is authoritative. Capybara reports add geographic granularity and triangulation, not legal authority.

How the work is done

What is the JANUS method?

JANUS is a peer-reviewed analytic framework for LLM-assisted qualitative analysis and writing (Feged 2025). Every Capybara situation report follows it: every claim links to a dataset or a verifiable source, every report gets an adversarial pass that lists alternative explanations, external triangulation (media, official bulletins) is treated as equal evidence to model output, and AI assistance is disclosed transparently.

What is FAIR data and why does it matter?

FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable. It's an open-science principle that requires data and methods to be discoverable, openly licensed, machine-readable, and well-documented. Capybara's datasets, model code, and reports follow FAIR principles wherever the upstream data licensing permits.

How are your risk models different from those used by governments?

Two ways. One: our models are independent — we fuse open satellite imagery, forecast ensembles (GFS, WeatherNext 2, CFSv2, CMIP6), and historical event archives, so we can disagree with an official source when the data supports it. Two: our outputs are per-pixel, designed to let a decision-maker prioritize specific places (a neighborhood, a wind farm, an evacuation route) rather than a department-wide alert.

Can I see the code? Can I fork it?

Yes. The full Earth Engine model suite is open under the MIT License at the Capybara EWS GitHub repository. Includes the wildfire, flood, and heatwave models, the JANUS situation-report templates, the historical legacy scripts, and a CONTRIBUTING guide for volunteers.

Heads up. The repo includes a CONTRIBUTING.md that establishes a friendly understanding: the code is open and yours to fork freely, but if you want to publish situation reports under the Capybara name, please come through the Capybara portal so the brand stays coherent. Want your own project on the same code? Fork and go — tell us and we'll link to you as a sister project.

Using the work

Who can use Capybara reports and tools?

Anyone. Local governments, NGOs, farmers, researchers, journalists, indigenous-territory authorities, civil-protection coordinators, infrastructure operators, students, and curious citizens. The reports are written so a non-expert can act on the executive summary; the FDO tables and method appendices serve technical readers. The code is open for anyone who wants to adapt it.

Are the tools usable in resource-limited settings?

Yes. Everything runs on Google Earth Engine (free for non-commercial use). The interactive models work in a browser with no installation. Volunteers in places with intermittent internet have run successful country-scale analyses.

Do you offer training?

Yes — informally. We run hands-on workshops with volunteers, walk new contributors through their first country run, and answer questions in the volunteer chat. Reach out if you want a session for your team.

My organization wants a custom analysis — can you do that?

Sometimes. We accept partner engagements that align with the mission and that we can publish openly (or, for sensitive cases, that we can describe at the methods level even if the specific outputs stay private). Get in touch with the country/region, the hazard, and the timeline.

Get involved

We are actively recruiting volunteers. The most useful contribution most people can make is running the model for a country or region they know, writing a JANUS situation report, and posting it. The technical bar is low — paste a GEE script, pick a country, click Run. We support every step.

How do I become a volunteer?

Read the CONTRIBUTING guide on the GitHub repo (covers what we ask, how we behave, how to write a JANUS-compliant situation report). Introduce yourself in the volunteer chat. Pick a country you know well and run the wildfire or flood model. Three things that surprise you become the seed of your first report. We pair you with a reviewer who's done it before.

I don't code. Can I still contribute?

Yes. Volunteers help with editorial review, translation (English ↔ Spanish ↔ Portuguese), media triangulation, stakeholder outreach, design, communications, and project management. The model-running side is genuinely small — most volunteer time goes into the JANUS-compliant writing, the editorial review, and the relationships with communities and partners who can act on the work.

Can my community participate in a report on our region?

Absolutely. Community input on what's actually happening on the ground is the most valuable form of triangulation we have access to. If you can help us verify, correct, or extend a situation report for your region, your contribution is co-authored and credited.

What we don't do

Capybara is a mission-driven project with bright lines. We do not issue partisan political commentary, accept paid placement or sponsored content, publish personally identifiable information, publish anonymously (every report carries the analyst's name), or push half-checked claims to meet a deadline. Better late than wrong.

Get in touch

Volunteers, partners, journalists, and curious readers — all welcome.

Become a volunteer	Read the CONTRIBUTING guide on GitHub, then introduce yourself via the contact form below with your background and a region you'd like to cover.
Partner or commission an analysis	Send the country/region, the hazard, and the timeline. We'll send back a short 2-pager describing the scope and approach.
Press inquiries	We are happy to provide context for stories that cite Capybara situation reports. Please attribute as "Capybara Center" and link to the underlying report.
Corrections / disputes	If a report misrepresents your region, your organization, or the data, tell us. Corrections are public and credited.

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Capybara Center · capybaracenter.blogspot.com · Founded 2024 · MIT-licensed open code · JANUS analytic framework: DOI 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7580516/v1