Can we predict a flood a few days before it occurs? If we could, we could have avoided a lot of damage. The floods in Kerala and recently in Chennai have caused a lot of damage. Now, Google has come forward claiming that its artificial intelligence (AI) model can predict floods seven days in advance.
Floods are one of the most common natural disasters and cause economic losses of over $50 billion annually. Climate change has further accelerated flood events since 2000, affecting 19 percent of the world's population, or about 1.5 billion people.
In a paper published in the science journal Nature, the tech giant said it combines two AI models that process publicly available data to make predictions. “The hydrologic model predicts the amount of water flowing in a river, and the 'flood model' predicts which areas will be affected and how high the water level will be”.
Google says its new AI technology can provide early warning of flood risk in climate-vulnerable areas around the world. The company also claims that Google AI has been able to accurately predict river floods seven days in advance.
According to the study report, Google trained machine learning models using historical events, river level readings, elevation and topography data, produced localized maps for each location and executed hundreds of thousands of simulations. This comprehensive data review allowed the AI models to predict flooding even in areas with insufficient data.