Flood data for humanitarian aid
The medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) uses Fathom’s flood data to gain crucial insights into flood risk in crisis-hit areas. This helps teams to respond more efficiently to catastrophic flood events as they happen and to be well prepared for them in the future.
MSF and flooding: Disaster response and preparedness
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international aid organization that provides humanitarian assistance in more than 75 countries. The organization brings medical care to people affected by crises such as conflicts and epidemics as well as natural disasters including earthquakes, tropical cyclones and floods.
The organization maintains a long-term or permanent presence in areas vulnerable to flooding, such as South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Bangladesh. Teams on the ground need to respond quickly to flood events, providing lifesaving medical care such as surgery, trauma care and mobile clinics. It also provides longer term healthcare, disease prevention and monitoring programs.
As well as being able to respond with emergency assistance when a flood hits, MSF also needs to be prepared for floods in advance. Understanding the likely locations, extent and severity of floods helps MSF plan its response to events before they even happen. It also helps with infrastructure planning decisions – placing hospitals to avoid flood-prone areas, for example – and informs decisions on where to focus resources for longer-term medical and healthcare projects, such as malaria vaccination programs.
The organization works in regions highly sensitive to climate change, including Small Island Developing States and areas prone to drought and severe weather, such as Pakistan, Somalia, and Mozambique. As a result, MSF is increasingly focused on planning for floods in an unpredictable future climate and a changing environment.
Preparing for floods in vulnerable, data-scarce areas
Understanding flood risk is crucial to MSF’s teams across its project portfolio. The job of forming this understanding falls to MSF’s Earth Observation and GIS Research and Development team, based in Vienna, Austria. The team works closely with HACE (the Humanitarian Action for the Climate and Environment), an MSF group that is focused on climate risk and preparedness. The teams collaborate closely to provide access to flood hazard and other data, allowing MSF operations around the world to better prepare and respond to floods.
A major challenge for the GIS teams is that MSF often works in areas where satellite and gauge data are scarce. The data the team was previously using did not offer the geographical coverage needed to be operationally practical and it did not cover all three sub-perils. MSF needed a new, scientifically robust dataset that covers fluvial (river), pluvial (flash) and coastal flooding, as well as representing multiple return periods and climate scenarios.
Having been introduced to Fathom’s data through a World Bank initiative in which Fathom’s data was offered free of charge for use in 16 vulnerable countries around the world, the MSF team chose to use Fathom’s data, after considering and evaluating several providers. The team is now licensed to integrate Fathom’s Global Flood Map data into its GIS systems to help fill the gaps and improve its flood risk understanding.
Tools for emergency response and preparedness
Early flooding indication in an emergency
In an emergency situation, quickly understanding the extent and location of flooding is critical. But capturing and analyzing airborne imagery is not always possible at speed, especially when cloudy weather conditions affect visibility.
Fathom’s Global Flood Map, because it covers different return period scenarios and all three sub-perils, provides MSF teams with an early indication of the likely flood location and extent.
MSF has also been able to develop an automated workflow within its platforms that integrates Fathom’s flood hazard data with exposure data and identifies not only the likely extent of a flood but also how many people could be affected.
During October 2025’s Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica, for example, MSF was able to combine Fathom’s flood data with other datasets, including damage assessments from organizations such as UNOSAT. It could then quickly frame the situation, pinpoint which communities were exposed and direct attention and resources accordingly.
Tools for analyzing future flood risk
Fathom also helps MSF teams to be better prepared for floods, both in the near future and under longer-term climate change scenarios.
Our data has helped facilitate MSF’s innovative GeoHazard dashboard tool, which is being used across the organization to inform project pre-planning. Teams can access the dashboard to compare relative flood risk across locations, looking at the extent and the depth of a one-in-100-year flood scenario, for example, to understand which sites are most vulnerable.
The organization is also increasingly integrating climate change adaptation into its operations. The MSF initiative Humanitarian Action for the Climate and Environment (HACE) was established in 2020 to help understand the potential health impacts of climate change – the growing prevalence of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and malaria, for example. Working with HACE, MSF is gradually incorporating climate scenarios and flood hazard models into its planning processes, particularly for site selection and facility rebuilding.
Fathom’s climate-conditioned flood data is being used to create tools that map climate hazards, including floods, to help teams assess the risk of project sites and implement climate adaptation measures, such as strengthening flood defences.
Other ways Fathom’s data supports pre-planning:
Camp management
Flood risk data helps in pre-emptive assessments of camp sites and in response to flood events that affect existing camps.
Exposure
Evaluating population and health facilities’ exposure to flood, particularly in urban settings, including relocation/mitigation scenarios.
Logistics
Analyzing the intersections between MSF operations axis (usual movement corridors) and fixed flood depth thresholds.
Medical
Evaluating health facilities with catchment areas exposed to flooding and stagnant waters in a Malaria-prone context.
“Fathom’s scientific quality and reputation as a best-in-class dataset, combined with the validation by the World Bank, gave us confidence to go with Fathom. Fathom has significantly improved our capabilities by providing comprehensive fluvial and pluvial flooding data and different return periods.
The implementation has allowed MSF to prioritize resources across 500+ sites and has led to more structured preparedness documentation in high-risk areas. The broader impact is that Fathom has shifted the way we think about flood risk and it has become embedded into our planning processes in a way that it wasn’t before.”
Ann de Schutter, Earth Observation (GIS) Manager, MSF
Photo: Tina Goetz
Better planning, prioritization and more resilient communities
Fathom’s data has helped MSF prioritize attention and resources, both in an emergency scenario and as part of pre-planning, across its project portfolio. By ranking flood exposure across more than 500 project sites, teams can direct monitoring, forecasting and emergency preparedness efforts towards the contexts that need it most. This directly translates into more structured preparedness documentation in high exposure areas.
Improvements have been seen in specific operational layers such as:
Fathom provides a clearer perspective on flood risks when rapid decision-making is needed for implementing emergency MSF infrastructure such as premises, stocks, and offices).
By incorporating Fathom’s data, teams are able to identify in advance the fords, bridges and wadi crossings that could become damaged during rainy season, and to define alternative routes. As a result, MSF has seen fewer cases of outreach programs being disrupted by floods cutting off routes, with reduced vehicle damage, and fewer interruptions to operations.
And when responding to flood events as they happen, Fathom’s data provides the all-important early indication of flood extent, meaning MSF teams can respond more quickly and direct its attention to the places that need it most.
Ultimately, this ensures communities in some of the most vulnerable regions of the world are better prepared for the future.
Science-backed flood intelligence with unprecedented precision
A ground-breaking paper led by Fathom delivers the most comprehensive validation of large-domain flood modeling to date, achieving benchmark-setting Critical Success Index (CSI) scores.
“We’re proud to see Fathom’s Global Flood Map helping MSF’s teams with pre-planning and emergency response operations in crisis-hit communities. It has been exciting to see how MSF has integrated Fathom’s climate-conditioned flood data into its systems to create innovative tools that are giving critical, timely insights into flood risk even in data-scarce areas, and ultimately to help save and improve lives.”
Gavin Lewis, Head of Engineering and Public Sector at Fathom
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Quote Fathom’s scientific quality and reputation as a best-in-class dataset, combined with the validation by the World Bank, gave us confidence to go with Fathom. Fathom has significantly improved our capabilities by providing comprehensive fluvial and pluvial flooding data and different return periods.
Quote The implementation has enabled MSF to prioritize resources across 500+ sites and led to more structured preparedness documentation in high-risk areas. The broader impact is that Fathom has changed how we think about flood risk and is now embedded in our planning processes in a way it wasn’t before.
