New system uses Twitter, AI to predict floods

Scientists are combining Twitter, citizen science and cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to develop an early warning system for flood-prone communities. Researchers from the University of Dundee in the UK have shown how AI can be used to extract data from Twitter and crowdsourced information from mobile phone apps to build up hyper-resolution monitoring of urban flooding. Urban flooding is difficult to monitor due to complexities in data collection and processing. This prevents detailed risk analysis, flooding control, and the validation of numerical models. Researchers set about trying to solve this problem by exploring how the latest AI technology can be used to mine social media and apps for the data that users provide.