Predicting floods using models for Covid and other infectious diseases
What do Covid-19, social networks, traffic congestion and floods have in common? On the face of it, the answer would seem to be - nothing. But interestingly enough, all these systems can be represented in similar fashions - as nodes and networks with spatial and temporal effects. So, scientists and researchers often try to see if models and ideas developed to solve problems in fields with similar representations can be adapted to problems in other fields. A really interesting study was published in Nature a couple of months ago, where researchers explored what happened when they adapted models used in understanding how infectious diseases like Covid spread to predicting floods in cities and urban systems. How have floods and their impacts typically been modeled and why do people care? To start with, people care about flooding because it directly impacts their lives - when do areas have to be evacuated, how long should the evacuation last, and what are potential health consequ