Italy too now has a new tool to protect itself from floods: it is Flood Hub, the Google platform based on artificial intelligence that displays forecasts of river floods, indicating when and where they will occur, in areas all over the world. 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), just today, as announced by Google CEO Sundar Pichai . “Governments, humanitarian organizations and individuals – explained 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, displaying data and forecasts on floods relevant to locally up to 7 days before the event, an increase from last year when information was only available 48 hours in advance.
Two technological models combined
Flood Hub’s artificial intelligence uses several publicly available data sources, such as weather forecasts and satellite images. The technology therefore combines two models: the hydrological model, which predicts how much water flows in 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 the flood forecast alerts in Google Search and Google Maps, with the aim of making this information available to users of our products when they need it most”.
Source-tg24.sky.it