Flood Hub is expanding to 80 countries, providing forecasting up to 7 days in advance of a flood to 460 million people.
Natural disasters, like flooding, are increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change, threatening people’s safety and livelihood. It’s estimated that flooding affects more than 250 million people globally each year and causes around $10 billion in economic damages.
As part of Google’s work to use AI to address the climate crisis, the organisation is expanding the reach of its flood forecasting tool to 80 countries.
With the addition of 60 new countries across Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and South and Central America, Flood Hub now includes some of the territories with the highest percentages of population exposed to flood risk and experiencing more extreme weather, covering 460 million people globally.
Governments, aid organizations, and individuals can use Flood Hub to take timely action and prepare for riverine floods, seeing locally relevant flood data and forecasts up to 7 days in advance — an increase from last year, when information was only available 48 hours in advance.
Flood Hub’s AI uses diverse, publicly-available data sources, such as weather forecasts and satellite imagery. The technology then combines two models: the Hydrologic Model, which forecasts the amount of water flowing in a river, and the Inundation Model, which predicts what areas are going to be affected and how deep the water will be.
Google is also working to expand flood forecasting alerts in Search and Maps to make this information available to people when they need it the most.
In 2018, Google kicked-off flood forecasting in India and expanded to Bangladesh to help combat the catastrophic damage from yearly floods.
Flood Hub is part of Google’s Crisis Response work to provide people access to trusted information and resources in critical moments — also including wildfires and earthquakes.
Source: Google Blog
