Google flood forecasting system now live in entire India

Tech giant Google has expanded its flood forecasting initiative to all over India, the company announced.

The initiative which began in 2018, to help combat the catastrophic damage from floods each year, was covering an area with about 220 million people. It has now been “expanded to cover an area with over 360 million people”, the company wrote in a blogpost this week.

From sending out 40 million potentially life-saving alerts, in the first three years, it almost tripled the alerts by sending out “over 115 million” in 2021.

The flood forecasting initiative works as part of Google’s broader Crisis Response programme which provides people access to trusted information and resources in critical moments.