Flooding often occurs when rain falls faster than the ground can absorb it, causing rivers to swell and overflow their banks. Professionals use the aptly named cloud technology to anticipate and respond to extreme weather events. From forecasting and issuing warnings to informing land use planning, this distributed network of servers provides real-time insights that shape preventive action.
Rising Floodwaters Threaten Commercial Buildings
Climate change causes rising sea levels and worsening severe weather. The risk of catastrophic loss and damage is higher in densely populated urban areas because the lack of green spaces adversely affects stormwater runoff management. For this reason, commercial spaces are particularly vulnerable.
The threat of coastal flooding is ever-present. According to the United States Congressional Budget Office, coastal properties are more than twice as likely to experience flooding as their inland counterparts. Experts project this risk will increase significantly through 2050.
Cities with frequent coastal or monsoonal flooding are the most vulnerable. Yet, a catastrophe can strike anytime, even in zones with minimal flood hazards. A slow drip can quickly evolve into a deluge when broken pipes, snowmelt, clogged gutters and poor drainage go unaddressed.
Flooded commercial properties must close to address structural damage, mold growth and electrical issues. Statistically, nine in 10 businesses will fail within one year if their operations shut down for five or more consecutive days. Early detection and prevention are fundamental in an increasingly flood-prone future.
What Commercial Flood Prevention Looks Like Today
Few signals are more telling than rising water after heavy rain — warning that riverbanks may soon overflow. Unfortunately, accurately predicting flash floods, burst water mains and monsoons is notoriously tricky due to their abrupt and chaotic nature.
Mapping floodplains, watching video surveillance systems and listening for flood warning sirens does not guarantee property damage prevention. Even legacy physics-based models focus on long-term trends, so they are not always correct. For this reason, commercial building owners often rely less on monitoring and more on defenses like physical barriers.
Existing methods are ineffective enough that property and casualty insurers have fled flood-prone states. From 2021 to 2023, nine Florida-based insurance companies declared insolvency. Commercial property owners can no longer rely on making claims after the fact.
However, using slow legacy technologies to anticipate sudden weather changes is like swimming upstream while blindfolded — people won’t know they’re in over their heads until it’s too late. Contractors, facility managers and commercial building owners need a modern, easily accessible solution that provides real-time insights.
Cloud Monitoring Is the Future of Flood Prevention
Cloud-based monitoring blows other solutions out of the water. In addition to pinpointing vulnerable areas, it assesses the efficiency of drainage networks and warning systems.
This technology can leverage satellites, digital elevation models, land use reports and drainage network maps to evaluate flood hazards. Topographic and spatial data improve awareness of floodwater’s movement, while historic precipitation records reveal the likelihood of an event. With these insights, people can determine their risk level in real time.
The cloud is a centralized information repository located on a network of remote servers. Unlike physical storage media, users can increase their storage space on demand, enabling scalability. It updates in real time, ensuring everyone can access the latest version.
Developing flood risk models using probabilistic approaches requires handling extensive, complex datasets. The computational requirements for development, simulation and visualization far exceed those of deterministic methods.
Simulations with brief runtimes may run on a single computer, but large-scale modeling campaigns multiply that effort, sometimes requiring serial execution of thousands of runs over days or years. The cloud is fast and scalable, making it the paragon of efficiency for this environmental modeling research.
Case Studies Demonstrating This Technology Works
Cloud-based environmental monitoring can enhance forecasting and prevention. Instead of avoiding building in flood-prone areas, which is not a long-term climate change solution, construction workers can construct built-in defenses and warning systems based on hyperspecific land-use planning information.
In Mogadishu, Somalia, researchers tested the waters with an Internet-of-Things-based drainage system that relied on a cloud computing service to collect and process information. The system detected and mitigated floods through automated water redirection, real-time alerts and a web application-based visualization interface.
Another research team in Indonesia had a similar idea. Their study focused on Makassar City, which experiences frequent monsoons. When they hit, the Makassar Strait, Jeneberang River and Tallo River experience storm surges. The inadequate Jongaya drainage system worsens high tides by failing to protect properties that are barely above sea level.
The Indonesian researchers aggregated satellite-based flood risk data and the local government’s urban land use plan on a cloud-based platform to evaluate existing drainage networks. They found over 82% of the urban land use plan — 29 square kilometers — is underwater. Inefficiencies in Biringkanaya, Manggala and Tamalanrea subdistricts lead to severe flooding.
Monsoonal flooding is challenging to predict. Its timing and strength vary because variables like land-sea temperature fluctuate annually. Further, climate change exacerbates its unpredictability. Cloud technology bridges the gap, helping them identify solutions.
What Professionals Can Do With Flood Risk Data
Professionals can use cloud-based flood risk data to develop climate-resilient land use plans that strategically integrate green spaces into urban areas to improve stormwater runoff and floodwater redirection management.
Cloud computing technology also enables real-time access to internet-enabled sensors, opening the door for automated flood prevention systems that can trigger before anyone realizes something is wrong. Early detection and prevention minimize disruption and property damage, protecting businesses.
Even if commercial building owners only use the cloud to monitor simple environmental conditions, they can stop pipes from bursting. Instead of visiting in person, they can view every property remotely from a single application. Catching leaks early is environmentally responsible because it reduces water waste and prevents unnecessary renovations.
This technology doesn’t require integration into buildings. Contractors can equip workers with passive radiofrequency identification chips, forming a responsive detection network. The system enables real-time tracking across the site during monsoons or flash floods.
Build Better With Cloud-Based Environmental Monitoring
Every second counts when floodwaters threaten lives and properties, which is why real-time analysis and processing are so vital. While the cloud is not the be-all and end-all of flood prevention, it is fundamental for accurate, timely environmental monitoring, especially as climate change renders historical models increasingly inaccurate.
