Climate

Downstream data

Hanna Nordwall — Wed, 20 May 2026 14:43:17 +0000

Downstream data Hanna Nordwall Wed, 05/20/2026 - 08:43

Susan Glairon

Researcher using AI to improve and personalize flood prediction

When Zhi Li was young, flash floods regularly swept through his village in China.

Once while he was swimming in a river, the water rose suddenly, submerging 10-year-old Li and pushing him downstream. Though massive amounts of rain had fallen upstream, where Li swam the sky remained a clear, deceptive blue.

“It was so quick,” said Li, an assistant professor of civil engineering who joined ��ñ�� in fall 2025. “I had no clue there would be a flood.

Fortunately, a stranger pulled him to safety. The experience inspired Li to devote his life to flood research. “Floods don’t necessarily happen where the rain falls,” Li said. “In my community, many lives were taken by floods. It was devastating.”

Improved simulations

In the United States, the National Weather Service issues weather forecasts and warnings based on expected rainfall and whether the precipitation is likely to overflow nearby rivers, streams or dams.

At Li’s Flood Lab at ��ñ��, his simulations draw on NWS rainfall predictions and detailed terrain data, including ground permeability, land use, soil type and vegetation cover. By combining U.S. Geological Survey terrain maps with AI, his models predict flooding with far greater precision and speed than the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s traditional physics-based models.

His approach can pinpoint where floodwater will pool at a one-meter resolution, detailed enough to show whether an individual building is likely to flood, compared with FEMA’s 10-meter resolution.

Li said achieving one-meter resolution using FEMA’s traditional approach would require extensive expertise and about a year of computation. Using AI, he can simulate an entire county in just two to three hours at a far lower cost.

“Drilling it down to single households is only possible once you have an AI product like this,” Li said. “It was unimaginable in the past.”

To improve model accuracy, Li checks his results with local experts who know which areas are most vulnerable to flooding. This human insight serves as a guardrail for AI, which can sometimes “hallucinate” false warnings.

Personalized warnings

Li’s research also involves changing how flood risk is communicated. Instead of the traditional top-down approach, issuing a single warning message for an entire county, he envisions a customized alert that starts with individual households and scales up to neighborhoods, communities and counties.

“Floods don’t necessarily happen where the rain falls.”

“There is evidence that during floods, some of the people with language barriers were unable to evacuate in time and lost their lives,” Li said. “Personalized warnings can help ensure critical information is clearly communicated so people can act quickly.”

His goal is to use data from the American Community Survey, an annual U.S. Census Bureau report on household demographics, to generate personalized warnings in each resident’s preferred language about whether their home will likely be affected. Evacuation guidance would also reflect a person’s mobility needs and access to transportation.

Flood prediction for all

Li is also developing an AI-powered assistant to democratize access to flood modeling. The approach aims to remove technical barriers that limit flood modeling to experts. Anyone would be able to see an area’s overall flood risk based on historical events. Users could interact with the model in a ChatGPT-style chat to explore flood risk maps by region.

The platform will eventually include real-time alerts and interactive simulations to empower communities to better understand their flood risks during an event without waiting for official warnings.

“I hope the model can be used anywhere in the world to reduce flood damage and provide accessible information to people at risk,” Li said. “That goal has always guided my research.”

Measuring the cost

Li also has a vision for measuring a flood’s total impact to human health, ecology, agriculture and the urban economy as a way to mitigate flood costs.

Comparing it to the total gross domestic product (GDP) that is used to evaluate countries’ prosperity, he envisions creating a “gross flood damage” value to help policymakers determine the amount of government aid for a community and how to reduce flood impact in future years.

Invisible costs, such as a loss of income due to flooded agricultural and other work spaces, would also be included.

Researcher using AI to improve and personalize flood prediction

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Winter never came to Colorado. What does it mean for water supplies?

Susan Glairon — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 17:25:53 +0000

Winter never came to Colorado. What does it mean for water supplies? Susan Glairon Tue, 03/31/2026 - 11:25

Associate Professor Ben Livneh, who’s also the director of the Western Water Assessment (WWA) at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), shares insights on what this “snow drought” means for water availability, how it compares to past trends and what may lie ahead as Colorado approaches peak snowpack season.

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Professor featured in Colorado Environmental Film Festival documentary

Susan Glairon — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 23:39:07 +0000

Professor featured in Colorado Environmental Film Festival documentary Susan Glairon Fri, 02/13/2026 - 16:39

Susan Glairon

“Women of Carbon,” featuring Associate Professor Mija Hubler, opens the Colorado Environmental Film Festival in Golden on Feb. 20. The documentary highlights women reshaping construction through sustainable innovation and decarbonization.

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Global collaboration to limit air pollution flowing across borders could save millions of lives

Alexander Servantez — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 18:04:48 +0000

Global collaboration to limit air pollution flowing across borders could save millions of lives Alexander Servantez Fri, 02/13/2026 - 11:04

A first-of-its-kind study, led by Professor Daven Henze and collaborators at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, assesses how health benefits of aggressive climate policy travel across international borders. The researchers say that ambitious climate action to improve global air quality could save up to 1.32 million lives per year by 2040.

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Evan Thomas Wins International Water Association career award for global water impact

Susan Glairon — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 23:17:35 +0000

Evan Thomas Wins International Water Association career award for global water impact Susan Glairon Mon, 12/15/2025 - 16:17

Evan Thomas, a professor and director of the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering & Resilience, has been awarded a career honor from the International Water Association for work that has reshaped how safe drinking water is delivered in some of the world’s most vulnerable regions.

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Reconstructing the ancient Indus River

Susan Glairon — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 00:25:49 +0000

Reconstructing the ancient Indus River Susan Glairon Thu, 12/11/2025 - 17:25

By combining hydrology and paleoclimate modeling, Balaji Rajagopalan, professor of civil engineering, and colleagues uncovered the long-standing mystery behind the disappearance of the Harappan Civilization.

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Climate financing boosting water access for millions in developing nations

Susan Glairon — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 16:02:54 +0000

Climate financing boosting water access for millions in developing nations Susan Glairon Wed, 10/29/2025 - 10:02

Evan Thomas, director of ��ñ��’s Mortenson Center in Global Engineering and Resilience, is pioneering climate-financed clean water programs that have brought safe drinking water to over 5 million people in Africa. Using carbon credits to fund long-term maintenance and real-time water quality monitoring, the center aims to reach 3 million more people by 2030.

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Xu selected to receive a 2025 Packard Fellowship award

Alexander James Servantez — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 16:35:51 +0000

Xu selected to receive a 2025 Packard Fellowship award Alexander Jame… Wed, 10/15/2025 - 10:35

Assistant Professor Nicole Xu has been selected as a recipient of the 2025 Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering. The award provides some of the nation’s most promising early career scientists and engineers flexible funding to test novel ideas and lead research that drives real-world impact.

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Building community around electrochemistry and energy innovation

Susan Glairon — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 15:26:41 +0000

Building community around electrochemistry and energy innovation Susan Glairon Sat, 09/13/2025 - 09:26

Co-organized by Professor Mike Toney, the 2025 Front Range Electrochemistry Workshop (FREW) broadly addressed electrochemical science, with this year’s focus on batteries reflecting their growing importance to everything from electric vehicles to renewable energy infrastructure.

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Undergraduate student works to address methane crisis in summer project

Alexander James Servantez — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 18:52:28 +0000

Undergraduate student works to address methane crisis in summer project Alexander Jame… Fri, 08/29/2025 - 12:52

Rising senior in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering Alex Hansen spent his summer break in ��ñ��’s Summer Program for Undergraduate Research (SPUR) studying the consequences of methane emissions. His work analyzing data gathered from unique methane detection sensors can one day help researchers address the methane crisis at some of the world's most prevalent methane emissions sites.

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