Google announces AI that can predict floods a week in advance

Around 1.5 billion people worldwide, or 20% of the total population, are at risk of serious damage from flooding, with the cost to the global economy estimated at around $50 billion a year. So Google's AI model for predicting floods is valuable.

A group of volunteers helps people in Nghe An move people and livestock to higher ground.

Published in the academic journal Nature , Google's AI research can provide up to seven days' warning of flooding. Predicting floods is said to be relatively difficult because many rivers around the world do not have flow meters installed, 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 data available 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 usable data to predict floods.

So, Google's AI model was created to predict natural disasters and floods. Led by a team led by Gray Nearing from Google Research, this AI model uses data collected from 5,680 flow meters around the world from 1980 to 2023. From there, the AI ​​can extend flood prediction by using previous flood information, thereby predicting floods up to 7 days in advance.

Initial evaluation results show that Google's AI can predict floods five days in advance with the same accuracy as conventional prediction software from the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS), which must be close to the day of the flood.

Flood Hub is one of Google's AI-powered forecasting resources.

This AI allows Google to send flood forecasts in 80 countries around the world, home to 460 million people, and provide forecast information through Search, Maps, Android notifications, Flood Hub, etc. In their article, the researchers said: "There is still a lot of room for improvement in the global flood early warning and forecasting system. It is extremely important for the well-being of everyone around the world."

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