Microsoft and NASA say they are applying artificial intelligence to a challenge that has become increasingly urgent: how to deal with floods and other disasters caused by extreme weather.
The result of their efforts is Hydrology Copilot, a suite of AI agents aimed at making hydrological data easier to access and analyze. The platform is built on the foundation laid for NASA Earth Copilot, a cloud-based AI tool that can search petabytes of Earth science data.
Hydrology is the scientific study of Earth’s water cycle, which includes precipitation, runoff, evaporation, and the movement of water through rivers, lakes, and soil. It’s not just an academic exercise: hydrological insights are applied to areas ranging from agriculture to forestry and urban development.
“NASA has long produced advanced hydrology and land surface datasets, enabling breakthroughs in drought early warning systems, land use planning, and environmental research,” said Juan Carlos López, a senior solutions specialist at Microsoft focused on space and AI, wrote in a blog post. “Despite their value, these data sets and the specialized tools needed to navigate and interpret them remain difficult to access for many who could benefit from them most.”
That’s where Hydrology Copilot comes in: Powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Microsoft Foundry, the platform lets researchers and others query NASA’s data using simple questions, for example, “Which regions may be at increased risk of flooding?”
Hydrology Copilot simplifies access to one of NASA’s most advanced hydrology datasets, the North American Land Data Assimilation System Version 3. The dataset integrates satellite measurements with computer models to present a continuously updated, high-resolution picture of the water cycle at a continental scale.
Insights from the database can help planners figure out how to improve drought monitoring, agricultural planning, water resources management, flood risk assessment and emergency preparedness. Recently flooding in Western Washingtonfed by a succession of atmospheric rivers, shows how important gaining such insights can be – and how useful Hydrology Copilot can be.
“The goal of this project is to provide the tools to help local officials, city planners and first responders more easily understand weather patterns and better prepare for the types of hydrological events we are seeing now in the Pacific Northwest and around the world, and will likely continue to see in the future,” a Microsoft spokesperson told GeekWire in an emailed statement.
Hydrology Copilot is still in development and is currently mainly used by researchers. Microsoft’s Azure AI team can provide more information about the platform. To take a test drive through more publicly accessible hydrological datasets, check out King County’s Hydrological Information Center and the interactive map of the National Water Forecasting Service.
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