Fathom interviewed by BBC on America’s flood risk

In the media 14.12.2017

This week, Fathom’s Oliver Wing spoke with the BBC on America’s flood risk, and the severe underestimations made by the Government’s flood models.

Oliver, who is a PhD student at the University of Bristol, has recently released a peer-reviewed paper for Fathom, titled Validation of a 30m Resolution Flood Hazard Model of the Conterminous United States, which demonstrates how Fathom’s flood model provides far more comprehensive coverage at a fraction of the cost of existing government data.

A second paper, which is currently under peer-review with a prestigious scientific journal, will be released in 2018, and will cover the subject of America’s flood risk, and provides updated flood risk estimates of the US using the Fathom-US model.

Fathom’s maps show that 40 million people are at risk of flooding in the USA, which is more than three times the amount predicted by the FEMA model currently used by the US Government. The upcoming peer-reviewed paper will feature the best estimates to date on the number of people exposed to flooding, the cost of damages caused by natural disasters.

Fathom’s BBC interview came ahead of the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting, where Fathom presented nine talks on global food mapping and risk, and Oliver was invited to join a press panel addressing the issue. As global leaders on flood mapping and risk, Fathom is delighted to have been cited by the BBC’s science correspondent on this prevalent topic.

Read Oliver’s full story with the BBC.

You May Like

View all posts
Partnerships

Fathom – World Bank collaboration

Research

New UK Space Agency funding for satellite mission data analysis

Company updates

Swiss Re acquires Fathom

Partnerships

Cytora integrates Fathom’s flood models into digital risk processing platform

Awards and prizes

Professor Paul Bates awarded John Dalton medal by European Geosciences Union

Partnerships

EigenRisk adds Fathom’s flood and climate risk capabilities to its global catastrophe risk management platform