United States: Social entrepreneurs predict flooding risk in vulnerable communities

By Anne Field 

As climate change causes more potentially catastrophic flooding across the globe, the need to predict what areas are the most vulnerable  becomes more urgent.

That’s the issue Cloud to Street is addressing, combining big data analysis, crowd sourced information from people on the ground and satellite imagery to create what co-founder Bessie Schwarz calls a “living vulnerability assessment.”

The startup recently  took part in a pitch event at SOCAP2016 in San Francisco.

Basically, the startup creates maps that determine and displays flood risks for anywhere in the world, with an analysis of which communities are most vulnerable because of their underlying social conditions. For example, in one area, it might turn out there’s a connection between having a large older population and higher risk of  extreme damage from flooding. According to Schwarz, although roughly 16% of  New Orleans residents were over 60 when Hurricane Katrina hit, 75% of deaths were from people in this age bracket.