Beth Tellman

Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona School of Geography, Development and Environment

Floods affect more people than any other hazard, and the frequency and magnitude of exposure is growing with demographic and climatic changes. Yet the ability to predict and monitor floods from local to global scales remains a challenge and limits access to financial protection for vulnerable populations. The increasing availability, frequency and spatio-temporal resolution of satellite data provides new opportunities to monitor floods locally and globally.

Advances in cloud computing and machine learning techniques enable increasingly accurate flood event monitoring by fusing observations from multiple sensors. Learn how these new methods and data can improve our ability to understand and adapt to flood risk from global to local scales. This talk will demonstrate how improved flood observations yield insight into where populations are moving into flood plains, inform decisions to relocate refugee camps, underpin innovative index insurance schemes in Colombia and Bangladesh.

Beyond adaptation, satellite-based flood data could be used to catalyze climate justice. I’ll show examples from recent work in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, where we are partnering with lawyers from Texas Rio Grande Legal Aide and community-based organizations to co-produce flood history data. Lawyers hope to use these data to hold FEMA accountable to doling out recovery funds for exposed populations and challenge infrastructure investments that protect wealthier communities from flooding at the expense of increased exposure to others.