Google announces AI that can predict floods a week in advance

Approximately 1.5 billion people worldwide, or 20% of the total population, are at risk of serious damage from flooding, with estimated losses to the global economy reaching around $50 billion annually. Therefore, Google's AI flood prediction model is extremely valuable.

A group of volunteers helped people in Nghe An move themselves and their livestock to higher ground.

Published in the academic journal Nature , Google's AI research can provide early warnings up to 7 days before floods occur. Predicting floods is considered relatively difficult because many rivers around the world lack flow meters, especially in developing countries.

Below is a graph showing the amount of flowmeter data on the vertical axis and the GDP of each country on the horizontal axis. It is easy to see that there is an inverse correlation between the available data in each country and GDP, meaning that poorer countries have less data that can be used to predict floods.

The chart shows that poorer countries have less data available to use for flood prediction.

Therefore, Google's AI model was developed to predict natural disasters, particularly floods. Led by a research team led by Gray Nearing from Google Research, this AI model uses data collected from 5,680 flowmeters worldwide from 1980 to 2023. From this, the AI ​​can expand flood predictions by using past flood information, thereby predicting floods up to 7 days in advance.

Initial assessments suggest that Google's AI can predict floods up to five days in advance with accuracy comparable to conventional flood prediction software from the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS), which typically predicts floods closer to the flood date.

Flood Hub is one of Google's AI-based forecasting sources.

This AI enables Google to send flood forecasts to 80 countries around the world, home to 460 million people, and provides forecast information through Search, Maps, Android notifications, Flood Hub, and more. In their article, the researchers state: “There is still much room for improvement in global flood early warning and forecasting systems. It is critically important for the well-being of everyone around the world.”

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