How AI is Improving Global Access to Reliable Flood Forecasts

Floods are the most common type of natural disaster, and are responsible for roughly $50 billion in annual financial damages worldwide. Nearly 1.5 billion people, making up 19% of the world’s population, are exposed to substantial risks from severe flood events. However, upgrading early warning systems to make accurate and timely information accessible to these populations can save thousands of lives per year. In “Global prediction of extreme floods in ungauged watersheds”, published in Nature, we demonstrate how Google Research technologies can significantly improve global-scale flood forecasting relative to the current state-of-the-art for countries where flood-related data is scarce. With these AI-based technologies we extended, on average, the reliability of currently-available global nowcasts from zero to five days, and improved forecasts across regions in Africa and Asia to be similar to what are currently available in Europe. Resources: Learn more about our work → Subscribe to the Google Research Channel → #GoogleResearch #GoogleAI