AIGoogle's approach to forecasting floods with AI
Google says its models use rainfall, river-level and ground-surface data to predict river floods up to seven days ahead.
TLDR
Google says its flood forecasting initiative grew from a 2018 pilot in India to making predictions in 150 countries where more than 2 billion people live. In a Google Q&A, research scientist Deborah Cohen describes how models analyze global data to forecast river floods up to seven days ahead. The company also describes Groundsource, which it announced in March 2026, as a method for turning public disaster data into an archive, starting with urban flash floods.
Google's approach to forecasting floods with AI
Google says its models use rainfall, river-level and ground-surface data to predict river floods up to seven days ahead.
TLDR
Google says its flood forecasting initiative grew from a 2018 pilot in India to making predictions in 150 countries where more than 2 billion people live. In a Google Q&A, research scientist Deborah Cohen describes how models analyze global data to forecast river floods up to seven days ahead. The company also describes Groundsource, which it announced in March 2026, as a method for turning public disaster data into an archive, starting with urban flash floods.