Google's AI Predicts Flash Floods Using Old News Reports
Google's AI Predicts Flash Floods Using Old News Reports
US · Published Mar 12, 2026
Google's AI model, Groundsource, uses old news reports to predict flash floods.
The model analyzes 5 million news articles to identify flood risks in 150 countries.
Despite limitations, the AI aids emergency response agencies by providing timely flood predictions.
Google's Groundsource uses AI to predict floods
Google has introduced a new AI-driven model named Groundsource, designed to predict flash floods by analyzing a vast archive of old news reports. Utilizing Google's Gemini large language model, Groundsource processes 5 million news articles, pinpointing 2.6 million flood-related reports. This data is then converted into a geo-tagged time series, forming the foundation for training a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural network. The model focuses on assessing flood risks in urban areas across 150 countries, delivering insights via Google's Flood Hub platform to assist emergency response agencies in their preparation and response efforts.
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