SmartFLOOD a global AI-based cloud-web platform for mapping fluvial hazard at large-scales

Integrating big open data and emerging information and communication technologies in flood risk management may well represent a next crucial stage in supporting robust, evidence-based decision-making. Flood risk management policies, such as the EU Floods Directive, are increasingly demanding and challenging. Authorities and stakeholders are clearly in need of innovative and cost-effective solutions to assess and map flood risk. SmartFLOOD is an innovative Artificial Intelligence Cloud-Web platform developed to drastically reduce cost and processing time in mapping Fluvial Flood Hazard at large-scales and at high resolution anywhere in the world. The web platform generates in real-time comprehensive flood hazard map for every place in Europe (at 25 m resolution) and for the entire planet (at 90 m resolution). SmartFLOOD’s intelligence is composed by three main components: 1) A high resolution Geomorphic Flood Index – GFI generated by processing available high resolution and hydrologically corrected Digital Elevation Models. 2) A set of available benchmark flood hazard maps usually available at lower resolution or limited spatial extension. 3) An efficient Machine Learning binary classification algorithm able to quickly provide the calibrated flood prone area. The Web Service is designed to provides end-users with the possibility to consistently and cost-effectively extend local detailed flood studies (i.e. those coming from complex flood models, field studies or remote sensing detection) in uncovered data-scarce regions, to extrapolate them to larger scales and downscale to finer resolutions. The service is fully operative at global scale and is available at https://gecosistema.com/smartflood.