Flood Hub, Google’s flood forecasting system, is also coming to Italy

Italy, too, now has a new tool to protect itself from flooding: it is Flood Hub, Google’s artificial intelligence platform that displays river flood forecasts and indicates when and where they will occur, in areas around the world, with a total population of 460 million people from 80 countries. Figures obtained thanks to the addition of 60 new countries (in Africa, in the Asia-Pacific region, in Europe, including Italy, and in South and Central America), starting today, as announced by Google CEO Sundar Pichai. “Governments, humanitarian organizations and individuals – stated Yossi Matias, VP Engineering & Research and Crisis Response Lead at Google – will be able to use Flood Hub to act quickly and prepare for the emergency by displaying data and forecasts about flooding relevant locally up to 7 days before the event, up from last year when information was only available 48 hours in advance.

Two technological models combined

Flood Hub’s AI uses a variety of publicly available data sources, such as weather forecasts and satellite imagery. The technology therefore combines two models: the hydrological model, which predicts how much water will flow into a river, and the flood model, which predicts which areas will be affected and how deep the water will be. We are working – concluded Matias – to further expand flood forecast warnings in Google Search and Google Maps, with the aim of making this information available to users of our products when they need it most.”