Recently, the regions around the Dead Sea in Jordan were flooded, causing the death of 21 children who were on a school trip, and injuring 35 more. Such disasters affect millions of people every year and cause property damage worth hundreds of billions. In 2017 alone, almost 335 natural disasters have affected more than 95.6 million people, and killed 9,697, costing around US $335 billion. But, the impact of these phenomena can be reduced if we were able to predict their occurrence. AI-powered systems can already predict the prices of stocks, which involve the analysis of numerous variables.

Google has provided a service for many years which provides alerts about natural disasters. This has been in the form of warnings provided by government agencies, which have been incorporated into its apps like Maps and Search. Google is now moving a stage beyond this regurgitation of information towards providing its own alerts based on its own analysis of climatic conditions. As the first wave of Google's use of artificial intelligence to predict natural disasters, The Verge reports how the technology firm will be working with the Central Water Commission of India. The service will inform Google users about impending floods.