Cloud to Street
Cloud to Street is a flood-mapping and monitoring system designed to protect the most vulnerable communities from natural disasters. Cloud to Street’s industry-leading, high-resolution mapping of flood-prone areas is used by planners, insurers and disaster response agencies to better understand and price flood risk, insure vulnerable populations, prepare for floods, and respond to flood events in near real-time. By leveraging machine learning, satellite imagery, crowd-sourced data, and new data platforms like Google Earth Engine, their technology platform can dynamically map the 100-year floodplain for any community around the world within seconds.
Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries, is also one of the world’s driest. Landlocked and encompassing part of the Sahara, it receives an average rainfall of 365 mm a year. The government, emergency responders, and aid organizations, including Cloud to Street partner the World Food Programme, are, as a consequence, prepared to cope with chronic drought. But flooding, which is devastating wider and wider swaths of populations, homes, infrastructure, and croplands, presents specific—and fatal—challenges.
