- Google has announced the expansion of its Flood Hub platform to cover 80 countries worldwide now.
- The Flood Hub platform now offers forecasts up to seven days in advance.
- Eight new countries in Africa have been added, with 23 African countries now on the Flood Hub.
This week Google announced the expansion of its Flood Hub platform, with it now featuring the data from and covering 80 countries worldwide.
As part of the expansion, Google will be able to send flood alerts in a further eight countries in Africa, bringing the total for the continent to 23.
“As part of our work to use AI to address the climate crisis, today we’re expanding our flood forecasting capabilities to 80 countries. With the addition of 60 new countries across Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and South and Central America, our platform Flood Hub now includes some of the territories with the highest percentages of population exposed to flood risk and experiencing more extreme weather, covering 460 million people globally,” explained Google in a blog post.
The Hub’s predictive capabilities have also been vastly improved, allowing flood alerts to be issued up to a week in advance, which of course holds a lot of value in regions where transport and logistics pose a challenge.
“Governments, aid organizations, and individuals can use Flood Hub to take timely action and prepare for riverine floods, seeing locally relevant flood data and forecasts up to 7 days in advance — an increase from last year, when information was only available 48 hours in advance,” Google added.
As for the 23 African countries that fall under the Flood Hub, Google listed them as follows:
- Angola,
- Burkina Faso,
- Cameroon,
- Chad,
- Democratic Republic of Congo,
- Ghana, Guinea,
- Ivory Coast,
- Liberia,
- Malawi,
- Namibia,
- Nigeria,
- Sierra Leone,
- South Sudan,
- South Africa,
- Burundi,
- Eswatini,
- Guinea Bissau,
- Lesotho,
- Madagascar,
- Rwanda,
- Senegal,
- Zimbabwe.
“To further enhance flood preparedness, Google is expanding flood alerts through Search and Maps notifications, ensuring that individuals have convenient access to timely and critical flood information. This expansion aims to empower more people to take necessary precautions and safeguard lives and property,” the company continued in a press release shared with Hypertext.
To find out how Google developed the models that power the Flood Hub, hit play on the video below.
[Image – Photo by Jonathan Ford on Unsplash]
