🌊 AI Now Forecasts Floods

Of all natural disasters, floods are the most common. Since 2000, their number has more than doubled due to climate change. More than 1.8 billion people now live in flood-risk areas, with more than 54 million affected in 2022.

Most regions vulnerable to disasters lack information on water levels and flows, making forecasting difficult. This is especially true for developing countries.

🔍 A new AI-powered tool developed by the Google Research team can accurately alert people 4-7 days in advance, which will help significantly reduce flood fatalities and damage.

The AI model was trained on river level readings, topography, data from past disasters, and hundreds of thousands of flood simulations around the globe.

💯 The researchers tested the model using 5,680 measurements of water flow around the world between 1984 and 2021 and compared it to other ways of forecasting natural disasters.

AI predictions proved to be just as accurate and sometimes even superior to other methods. Most importantly, the AI model can provide warnings for both small and extreme floods at least 4 days earlier, as well as predict changes in river levels and rainfall rates 5 years in advance.

🇮🇳🇧🇩 Google started testing the project 6 years ago in India and Bangladesh, the two countries most vulnerable to floods. In 2019, 800,000 people received disaster alerts, and in 2021 - already 23 million.

Now, 80 countries and more than 2,000 locations with 460 million people have access to the AI-powered Flood Hub platform. This early warning system produces free and open flood forecasts in the search engine and on Google Maps, as well as through cell phone notifications.

🔼 The developers plan to keep expanding the flood forecasts coverage area, and by 2027, aim to launch the global Early Warnings for All initiative with alerts for any natural disasters and climate hazards.

#news @hiaimediaen