Digital Event Horizon
UC Santa Cruz Researchers Use NVIDIA Accelerated Computing to Map Coastal Flooding Risks and Develop Solutions for Climate Change Mitigation. The project aims to strengthen the USGS's Coastal Storm Modeling System, accelerate flood risk models and visualizations, and provide critical insights into coastal adaptation options.
NVIDIA's GPU technology is being used to develop innovative flood mapping solutions to address climate change. The project aims to strengthen the USGS's Coastal Storm Modeling System, accelerating flood risk models and visualizations by up to 95% using NVIDIA GPUs. Researchers can now run four simulations simultaneously on a cluster of four GPUs, significantly reducing computation time and enabling global mapping of small-island developing states. Data-driven videos are being used to visualize flooding scenarios, motivating action and demonstrating the effectiveness of nature-based solutions. The approach has inspired other regions to adopt similar policies, including parametric insurance policies to protect coral reefs.
NVIDIA's recent advancements in accelerated computing are playing a pivotal role in addressing one of the most pressing global issues of our time: climate change. As coastal communities around the world continue to face the brunt of rising sea levels and increased storm intensity, researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) have turned to NVIDIA's cutting-edge GPU technology to develop innovative flood mapping solutions.
The project, led by Michael Beck, professor and director of the UCSC Center for Coastal Climate Resilience, aims to strengthen the USGS's Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS), which is the first toolkit for quantitative evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of coastal adaptation options. By harnessing the power of NVIDIA's CUDA-X software, including cuPyNumeric library and nvfortran compiler, running on NVIDIA RTX GPUs awarded through the NVIDIA Academic Grant Program, Beck and his team have accelerated their flood risk models and visualizations from a process that originally took approximately six hours on CPU workloads to just about 40 minutes using a single NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation GPU.
With the team's cluster of four GPUs, they can now run four simulations simultaneously, significantly reducing the computation time and enabling them to set more ambitious, global goals for their project. This newfound capacity has allowed Beck's team to map all small-island developing states globally — from Tonga to Trinidad and Tobago — before the COP30 climate change conference in November.
The benefits of adaptation strategies in Capitola, California, are being explored using simulation tools such as SFINCS and feeds into the Unreal Engine 5 rendering engine to produce data-driven videos showing various flooding scenarios. These visualizations serve as a crucial tool for motivating action, as they enable stakeholders to better understand flood risks and demonstrate how nature-based solutions can mitigate damages on shore.
One notable example of this approach is the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef in Mexico, south of Cancun on the Mayan Riviera. Through his work with The Nature Conservancy, Beck presented visualizations of reefs in the event of a hurricane to interested parties, including hotel owners along the coast, the Mexican government and World Bank Group.
The success of this approach has inspired other regions throughout the Caribbean and Hawaii to adopt similar policies, with insurance companies investing in parametric insurance policies to protect coral reef. These policies stipulated that if the wind reached over 100 knots, a payout would be triggered to restore the damaged reef.
As Beck notes, "To motivate action, you have to understand and visualize a bit more about the increasingly risky storm events that we're facing right now, because of where they're developing and the impacts of climate change." This emphasis on visualization is critical in addressing the complex problems surrounding coastal flooding, as it enables stakeholders to better understand the risks and benefits of adaptation strategies.
The research team's efforts are part of a broader effort to accelerate enterprise AI and data processing. NVIDIA and Oracle have collaborated to accelerate this effort, enabling organizations to unlock the full potential of their data and drive innovation in areas such as scientific visualization and social impact.
As we move forward in addressing the challenges posed by climate change, it is clear that NVIDIA's commitment to accelerating computing will play a vital role in driving progress. By harnessing the power of GPU technology, researchers like Beck are pushing the boundaries of what is possible, developing innovative solutions that can help mitigate the impacts of coastal flooding and promote a more sustainable future.
Related Information:
https://www.digitaleventhorizon.com/articles/NVIDIA-Accelerates-Climate-Change-Mitigation-through-Advanced-Flood-Mapping-Technologies-deh.shtml
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/uc-santa-cruz-maps-coastal-flooding/
Published: Tue Oct 21 15:45:44 2025 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
