World Solve

The problem of crime mapping remaining weak continues to affect hundreds of millions of people and undermines progress on multiple Sustainable Development Goals. Existing responses remain fragmented, under-resourced and poorly adapted to local contexts. A strong solution must operate effectively under severe constraints of skilled personnel, infrastructure, electricity and connectivity. It should define clear measurable outcomes, identify possible unintended harms, and demonstrate how the intervention can be sustained by local institutions long after initial funding ends.

Climate change and urban pumping changes may cause groundwater to enter basements, transit systems, utilities, and foundations. Cities need mapping, waterproofing, drainage, and financing strategies that address slow cumulative damage. The design must remain functional when standards, trade routes, data access, and diplomatic cooperation are unreliable. The research opportunity is to define measurable success criteria, test the approach in realistic settings, identify failure modes, and create a pathway from prototype to accountable deployment.

Constant algorithmic renaming of streets undermines maps, emergency response, local knowledge, and historical continuity. The challenge is allowing dynamic naming for cultural or commercial reasons while preserving reliable addressing and navigation for residents and services.

Many consultation processes collect comments but provide no traceable response or rationale. Structured argument maps, versioned policy records, and privacy-aware participation analytics could improve accountability without reducing deliberation to popularity. The opportunity is intentionally human-scale: a cooperative, clinic, workshop, school, or municipal team could pilot it within one locality and measure outcomes before expanding. Mathematical modeling can help with coordinate uncertainty, incentives, or resource constraints; entrepreneurship can turn a reliable workflow into a viable service.

Maps rarely capture broken lifts, blocked sidewalks, steep surfaces, or staff-dependent access. Community sensing plus uncertainty-aware routing could produce useful guidance while clearly communicating confidence and risk. The opportunity is intentionally human-scale: a cooperative, clinic, workshop, school, or municipal team could pilot it within one locality and measure outcomes before expanding. Mathematical modeling can help with forecast uncertainty, incentives, or resource constraints; entrepreneurship can turn a reliable workflow into a viable service.

Homes are full of unpredictable obstacles, from pets to scattered toys, that robots still struggle to navigate as reliably as humans do without careful pre-mapping. This limits how useful home robots can be for daily tasks.

Science, tourism, and fishing activities leave infrastructure, pollution, and disturbance, but their combined effects are under-studied. Spatial-impact mapping and cumulative-effects assessment platforms are needed.

Debates over future extraction lack robust cost–benefit analyses including climate and ecosystem services. Integrated economic–ecological modelling tools could inform policy.

Acoustic disturbance may affect whales, seals, and birds, but data are sparse. Acoustic monitoring networks and impact models can inform regulation.

Sea-level rise and extreme rainfall threaten settlements and infrastructure. Climate-risk mapping and relocation-planning tools can guide adaptation.

Bridges, tunnels, and rail lines built decades ago require expensive renovation at a time of fiscal pressure. Asset-condition mapping and lifecycle-finance tools can prioritise investment.

Objects in the distant solar system could reveal formation history and the presence of rogue planets, but only a few have been discovered. Wide-field deep surveys and improved orbit determination are needed.

We have detected a handful of mergers, but their cosmic history and diversity remain unclear. Next-generation detectors with wider frequency coverage can map the gravitational-wave background.

These fields affect cosmic-ray propagation and structure formation but are hard to measure. Faraday rotation surveys and gamma-ray observations can constrain them.

Timing and sources of reionization remain uncertain. 21cm experiments and high-z galaxy observations can map it.

Many countries lack timely, granular data on who is poor and why, leading to mistargeted interventions. Mobile and satellite-based poverty-mapping could improve program design.

Upstream dam-building by some nations threatens downstream water security for millions in neighboring countries. Data-sharing treaties and joint hydrological monitoring platforms could reduce conflict risk.

Densely populated deltas like the Ganges-Brahmaputra and Mekong face increasing flooding and salinization of farmland. Adaptive infrastructure and salt-tolerant crop varieties could help communities adjust.

Historic neighborhoods and monuments are frequently demolished to make way for commercial development, erasing cultural heritage. Digital heritage-mapping and adaptive-reuse financing models could balance preservation with growth.

Constant traffic and construction noise in megacities contributes to stress and hearing damage but receives little regulatory attention. Urban noise-mapping tools could inform targeted mitigation policies.