AI flood prediction model designed in Ireland could help communities like Midleton

The model forms part of a larger project which aims to develop an Earth Observations services sector in Ireland

Flooding in Midleton during Storm Babet. Picture: Cork County Council

A new Irish-designed artificial intelligence (AI) model capable of accurately predicting the extent of future floods could be used by local authorities and communities such as Midleton to take emergency damage limitation measures.

The project is led by researchers at CeADAR, Ireland’s centre for applied AI in University College Dublin (UCD), who said it could soon be used to warn communities ahead of heavy rain and give local authorities time to limit damage to homes and businesses, evacuate residents, and protect livestock.

The team used data collected by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellite to map historical flooding events in flood-prone areas of Ireland including Midleton in Cork, Limerick city, Carrick-on-Shannon in Leitrim, and Athlone in Westmeath. The maps were then fed into an AI model designed to predict the extent of future flooding events in these areas with an accuracy rate of up to a distance of approximately 20 metres.

Ireland has seen significant flooding events in recent months, with Storm Ciarán, Storm Debbie, and Storm Babet badly affecting residents and businesses in the west and southwest of the country in particular.

The researchers said flooding in Ireland is “certain to worsen” in the coming years due to climate change, with more intense floods in historically vulnerable areas as well as areas that have never flooded previously.

Last year, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council warned that extreme flooding events resulting from climate change could cost the State around €500m a year by the end of the decade. It also warned that a one-in-10-year flooding event in Dublin could cost up to €2.9bn with over 14,500 properties at risk.

Dr Omid Memarian Sorkhabi, who is leading the development of the model, monitored the Midleton flooding in real time during Storm Babet using the Sentinel-1 satellite which he said will refine and improve the model’s accuracy.

“Flooding events like the one that hit Midleton during Storm Babet are devastating for households and business owners whose properties are worst affected. The silver lining is that Sentinel-1 was right over the area at the time so we have gathered a lot of valuable data that will help predict the extent of the next event and ensure that future damage is limited,” he said.

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Although in the process of developing, testing and validating the tool, Dr Sorkhabi said there is “huge potential” for the model to be made available to local authorities and could be trained and expanded to be used in other parts of the world.

CeADAR director of applied research, Dr Oisín Boydell, said flood prediction and mapping has traditionally been based on weather models and low-resolution maps, “whereas this one is very much data-driven, based on events over the past decade and the current situation in a given area”.

“This project has major implications for communities in areas at high risk of flooding in Ireland. We’ve witnessed extensive flooding across the country in recent times and, with increasing greenhouse gas emissions certain to lead to more rapid climate change, we can expect even more intense precipitation events in the future."

The model forms part of a larger project led by University College Dublin which aims to develop an Earth Observations (EO) services sector in Ireland and explore the potential impact of EO data in the areas of climate, agriculture, and the marine.