Google's AI System Can Predict Flash Floods 24 Hours in Advance

Google has introduced a new artificial intelligence system called Groundsource designed to predict the risk of flash flooding up to 24 hours before it occurs.

The technology was developed using Google’s Gemini AI model, which was utilised to analyse millions of flood reports from news sources worldwide and generate predictions for flood-prone areas in more than 150 countries.

According to Gila Loike, a product manager at Google Research, this marks the first time Google has used its large language model (LLM) to create a scientific dataset from globally-scaled text reports.

Flash flooding is one of the deadliest weather disasters in the world, claiming an estimated 5,000 lives annually. However, flash floods are also among the most difficult to predict. Unlike river flooding, which can be monitored using water level sensors, urban flash floods typically occur very rapidly when heavy rainfall overflows roads and drainage systems.

The challenge has been that historically, there has been limited detailed data recording flash flood events. Without such data, scientists have found it difficult to train AI models to recognise the patterns that trigger these disasters.

Gemini was used to examine approximately 5 million global news articles from 2000 onwards. The AI extracted information about flood events from these articles and converted them into structured data containing the location and timing of each occurrence.

Following filtering, deduplication, and translation from various languages, the millions of news reports were ultimately transformed into a global flood dataset containing approximately 2.6 million flood event records from over 150 countries.

The model combines various data points, including hourly weather forecasts, urbanisation levels in specific areas, soil water absorption capacity, and topographical conditions.

Using this data, the AI generates flash flood risk alerts for the following 24 hours in urban areas with population densities exceeding 100 people per square kilometre.

Google’s Groundsource flash flood predictions are made available through the Flood Hub platform. This Google service previously provided river flood warnings to approximately 2 billion people globally. Users can access Flood Hub directly online, search for specific countries or cities, and check whether flash flood predictions are in place for the following 24 hours.