Academic research is fundamental to Fathom. We have a strong research pedigree and continue to partner with leading academic and commercial organisations to push the boundaries of science and further our understanding of flooding.

Interested in our research? View our papers.

Research partners

University of Bristol

We continue to forge a close academic partnership with the University of Bristol, continually publishing our research in world-leading scientific journals. Work to date has entailed: validation of our US and global flood maps, development of a US cat model, and the uncovering of revolutionary insights into flood risk quantification globally.

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Nasa

NASA use Fathom’s flood hazard data, including in the wake of Hurricane Harvey when they were used to produce loss indices. Fathom have also joint-coordinated NASA’s Flood workshops.

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Google

Fathom partnered with Google to aid in our unprecedented scientific validation of the Fathom-US flood layers. In particular, we used Google Earth Engine – Google’s cloud-based platform for planetary-scale geospatial analyses – to compare our flood model to observations and local models of flood events, providing objective and public quantification of the skill of our modelling techniques.

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The Nature Conservancy

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Wharton Risk Center

Fathom works with the Wharton Risk Center on a variety of projects relating to flood risk in the US, leveraging our world-leading expertise in hazard modelling. In particular: analysis of US vulnerability functions, patterns of flood insurance penetration, and understanding historic changes to flood exposure.

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US Army Corps of Engineers

Fathom works with the USACE on a number of projects across the United States related to flood risk modelling.

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World Bank

Fathom have worked with the World Bank on multiple projects, providing hazard information in Belize, Tanzania, Argentina and Vietnam.

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Facebook

Fathom used new population data produced by Facebook to explore flood exposure in developing regions. The findings of the work were published in Nature Communications.

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US Environmental Protection Agency

We worked with the EPA to understand how demographic and developmental changes throughout this century might impact flood risk in the US. Using their projections of population and land-use change alongside our flood maps, we expect an 83% increase in population exposed to the 100-year flood and an acceleration in the development of risky areas.

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Univesity of California, Davis

UC Davis and Fathom have a close partnership in pursuit of flood risk modelling and mitigation solutions across the US

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The Met Office

Fathom work with the Met Office on research projects coupling the next generation of high-resolution climate models to our flood models.

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GFZ Potsdam

The German Research Centre for Geosciences works with Fathom on a variety of projects related to flood vulnerability modelling.

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University of Tokyo

Fathom work with the University of Tokyo on a variety of projects related to DEM processing, and global hydrologic and hydrographic mapping.

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University of Southampton

Fathom work with the National Oceanography Centre in the building of global coastal flood models.

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The University of Bologna

The University of Bologna helped us to test our new approach to flood defence representation using their modelling expertise of the well-engineered Po River Basin in Northern Italy. When using our new algorithm, simulation of historic flood events were improved even over traditional engineering-based approaches.

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Iowa Flood Center

Fathom partnered with the Iowa Flood Center to compare flood mapping and modelling approaches at large scales. Versus their high-quality, engineering-grade models of Iowan cities, our US-wide model could replicate their data to within error.

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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Fathom works with LBNL on the attribution of flood hazard and risk events to climate change.

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US National Center for Atmospheric Research

Fathom & NCAR work together on projects to examine shifting patterns of flood risk in a changing climate.

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University of Twente

Fathom work closely with the University of Twente on projects related to at-scale hydraulic modelling.

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Concordia University

Fathom and Concordia University in Montreal work on a variety of projects related to Canadian flood modelling.

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University of California, Irvine

UC Irvine and Fathom study a variety of flood modelling related projects, including the development of innovative financial tools for dealing with costly environmental problems.

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University of Iowa

Fathom examine the social vulnerability of flooding in the United States in partnership with the University of Iowa.

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University of Oklahoma

Fathom & OU examine competing approaches for real-time inundation forecasts.

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University of Utrecht

Fathom work with the University of Utrecht on a number of global hydrological modelling problems.

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Louisiana State University

Fathom & LSU work together to understand how climate change induced changes to flood hazard exacerbate social inequities.

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University of Leeds

Fathom supports colleagues at the University of Leeds who are interrogating the sensitivity and skill of global flood modelling approaches.

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University of Reading

Fathom works indirectly with the University of Reading through the FCDO partnership.

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