Google has already announced it river floods, in some cases up to seven days. This isn’t just tech company hyperbole, because the findings have actually been published Nature. Floods are the most common natural disaster worldwide, so any early warning system is good news.
Flooding was very difficult to predict because most rivers do not have stream gauges. Google has solved this problem historical events, river level readings, elevation and terrain readings, etc. with all relevant information including. The company then created localized maps and ran “hundreds of thousands” of simulations everywhere. This combination of techniques allowed the models to accurately predict upcoming floods.
This approach created “high-precision models for very specific locations,” but Google hopes to use these techniques to solve the problem globally. While the company successfully predicted some floods a full seven days in advance, they came within five days on average. However, Google is sure to have extended the “validity of currently available global now streams” from zero to five days. It also significantly improves forecasting in underrepresented regions such as Africa and parts of Asia.
In total, this technology allowed Google to provide accurate flood forecasts in 80 countries with a total population of 460 million. The company made these predictions available on Google Search, Google Maps, and through Android notifications. This information can also be obtained through the owner of the company which is a web application .
What will happen next? Google will continue to explore “the potential of machine learning to build better flood forecasting models” and has teamed up with academic researchers to fine-tune the AI-based approach. The company hopes this will eventually result in a “global flood forecasting platform”.
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