Microsoft and NASA create AI agents that can help scientists anticipate floods and other water woes

Microsoft and NASA say they’re applying artificial intelligence to a challenge that has become all too pressing in the past couple of weeks: how to cope with flooding and other nightmares brought about by extreme weather events.

The result of their efforts is Hydrology Copilot, a set of AI agents aimed at making hydrological data easier to access and analyze. The platform is built on the foundation established for NASA Earth Copilot, a cloud-based AI tool that can sift through quadrillions of bytes of the space agency’s Earth science data.

Hydrology is the scientific study of Earth’s water cycle, which encompasses precipitation, runoff, evaporation and the movement of water through rivers and lakes and soil. It’s not just an academic exercise: Hydrologic insights are put to use in fields ranging from agriculture to forestry to urban development.

“NASA has long produced advanced hydrology and land-surface datasets, powering breakthroughs in drought early-warning systems, environmental planning and environmental research,” Juan Carlos López, a senior solution specialist at Microsoft who focuses on space and AI, wrote in a blog post. “Yet despite their value, these datasets and the specialized tools required to navigate and interpret them remain difficult to access for many who could benefit most.”

That’s where Hydrology Copilot comes in: The platform, which is powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Microsoft Foundry, lets researchers and others query NASA’s data using straightforward questions — for example, “Which regions may be facing elevated flood risk?”

Hydrology Copilot simplifies access to one of NASA’s most advanced hydrology datasets, the North American Land Data Assimilation System Version 3. NLDAS-3 matches up satellite measurements with state-of-the-art computer models to present a detailed, continuously updated, continental-scale view of the water cycle.

The dataset can provide a wealth of insights for drought monitoring, agricultural planning, water resource management, flood risk assessment and emergency preparedness. This month’s flooding in Western Washington, brought on by an onslaught of storm systems, shows how important it can be to gain such insights — and how useful Hydrology Copilot can be.

“The goal of this project is to provide the tools that can enable local officials, city planners and emergency 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 under development, and is being used primarily by researchers for now. Microsoft’s Azure AI team can provide further information about the platform. To take a test spin through other, more publicly accessible hydrology datasets, check out King County’s Hydrologic Information Center and the interactive map provided by the National Water Prediction Service.