SEEDS - Case Study

Predicting Disasters And

Saving Lives With SEEDS
India And Microsoft

Introduction
SEEDS is a not-for-profit organization that helps make communities resilient through comprehensive interventions in the areas
of disaster readiness, response, and rehabilitation. Gramener has partnered with SEEDS and Microsoft to develop the Sunny
Lives AI model under Microsoft’s global program ‘AI for Humanitarian Action.’ This predictive model aids in planning better risk
reduction strategies against worsening climate emergencies and disasters.

Challenge
When disasters like floods and heatwaves occur, warnings and other risk-related information are often vague and not up to date.
Much of the current risk information work at a macro-level, covering hundreds of square meters of area and being too hard to
understand by at-risk populations.

There was a need to localize the risk information down to a neighborhood scale. This would help to mobilize targeted immediate
response and build long-term resilience in the vulnerable communities. SEEDS wanted to automate, scale, and code their vast
experience accumulated over the decades responding to various disasters at the ground level.

The SEEDS Sunny Lives model is a proactive attempt to address this challenge. The solution can deliver granular risk scores down
to house level. This means that authorities can warn the high-risk houses earlier, allowing them to safeguard their property and
reduce the damage caused. For instance, residents can take pre-emptive measures such as moving to the top floor of the house
or evacuating to a safe site. Such actions reduce the damage, lowering the overall time and cost of recovery.

Approach
SEEDS partnered with Microsoft and Gramener to create an advanced machine learning-based model that could help them
plan and respond more effectively to disasters.

This model uses historical data and satellite imagery to predict hyper-local risk information for early intervention. The Sunny
Lives model builds on the knowledge that SEEDS has garnered over the years. The underpinning logic of the model is that the
roofing material of a house can act as a proxy for its socio-economic condition. Hence, the capacity of a family living in a
makeshift metal sheet home to respond and recover would be considerably less than that of one living in a large house
constructed of concrete. When two such dwellings exist in the same area, the impact of destruction caused by a disaster is
significantly different for both. The solution maps this information on satellite imagery and other geographic parameters -
forming the backbone of this AI solution.

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Solution
The AI-based disaster impact model can predict and generate hyper-local risk information that can be used for early warnings
for impending disasters. The model leverages high-resolution satellite imagery interpreted by the system to identify the most
vulnerable houses in a community. After that, SEEDS can recommend preventive actions to reduce the impact of any incoming
disaster for the at-risk population.

Initially, the model was developed for floods but was then scaled to include heatwaves. The model is currently being developed
for earthquakes. A web user interface is designed so that the model results can be made easily accessible. The base map has
been chosen to make sure that the locations are labeled for ease of navigation.

Technology Used for This Solution

Creating the Sunny Lives model required working from scratch due to some challenges -
The population in those areas was dense enough to make accurate differentiation between houses difficult. As
geographies change, so do the roof types, and identifying these different roof types was of prime importance for the
model’s concept.
There was no readily available training data to tag roof types for forecasting damage intensity.
Gramener, in partnership with Microsoft, built a Machine Learning model to counter these issues. To create the training data,
Gramener accessed high-resolution satellite imagery and manually tagged over 50,000 houses. The roofs were classified under
7 categories based on the material used for their construction.

The final model could identify roofs with up to 90% accuracy. On top of this, Gramener added other geographic layers or
parameters to the model. The following parameters were considered-

Waterbodies - River, Lake, Pond, and Sea

Distances from Road Network
Topographic Wetness Index (TWI)
Elevation and Slope
Vegetation (NDVI)- Sparse, Moderate, and Dense
Impervious surface
Landslide Risk
Building Footprints

Developing the model took about 4 months. It was piloted in 2020

during cyclone Nivar and Burevi that hit the southern Indian states
of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, respectively. The solution was deployed
at scale in Puri during Cyclone Yaas in May 2021.

The solution required using a technology that could provide

information that can be easily comprehended by the disaster
response teams and the affected communities. Considering that
many disaster-prone areas are off the technology grid with low
mobile penetration and network connectivity, it was necessary to
break down the output from complex technologies like machine
learning and artificial intelligence into simple and widely
understood information. For example, SEEDS created specific
advisories for dwelling types, suggesting the course of action for
the individuals to reduce the risks.

The solution utilizes high-resolution geospatial imagery and open

datasets. It also uses geospatial analytics tools such as Kepler and A mock-up of the advisory shared by SEEDS with at-risk families
Microsoft Azure to host and represent the results.

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Gramener, 2 Research Way, Princeton, New Jersey, 08540, USA
Impact
The solution produces hyper-localized risk information that can be used by different stakeholders responding to the disasters.
These stakeholders include national-level disaster management professionals, climate change adaptation experts, government
agencies, and at-risk communities. Another highlight of the solution is its scalability. It can respond to different kinds of disasters
such as floods, heatwaves, and earthquakes.

During cyclone Yaas, once the path of the cyclone was predicted, Gramener procured high-resolution satellite imageries of
low-income settlements that would be impacted and ran the AI model for these areas. With the model, it was possible to get a
risk profile of the area at a household in a span of a few hours, a process which otherwise would have required manual surveys
for a few days.

With this solution, SEEDS could alert individuals with detailed directions on how to safeguard their belongings, house, pets, and
livelihood. For instance, when Cyclone Yaas hit the shores of Puri in May 2021, the Sunny Lives model was able to help the
impacted communities with success. One of them was Satyavati.

A resident of Odisha state in India, Satyavati spent over six decades of her life surviving cyclones. In November 2020, she lost all
her belongings, including a food stall, to Cyclone Nivar. This year, however, things were different. Satyavati, along with many
others in her community, received a personalized advisory from SEEDS printed in the local languages a day before the cyclone
made landfall. She followed the advisories as her family secured away from their belongings and left for a nearby government
shelter. She moved the contents of her food stall to a neighbor’s concrete house. After the cyclone, even though her hut was
impacted as predicted by the model, she was able to resume her food stall immediately.

In this way, the model offers actionable insights and directly helps the communities most at risk.

In terms of quantifiable impact, the deployment of this intuitive solution has resulted in the following outcomes -

The dwelling detection rate has improved from 52% to 88%.

The model was launched and tested live during Cyclone Nivar in Tamil Nadu and Burevi in Kerala in 2020. It achieved a high
impact assessment accuracy, with more than 90% of houses damaged by the cyclone detected as houses at high/very high
risk.

Utilizing the predictive analytics capabilities of the solution, SEEDS scaled up the model for heat waves in 2021. The model
was run in Delhi and Nagpur and shared pre-emptive heatwave advisories to 50000 individuals from at-risk communities.
The advisories recommended cost-effective interventions people could take to alleviate the heatwave risk.

In 2021, during cyclone Yaas, SEEDS reached out to 1100 families living in Penthakata, Puri - an area exposed to frequent
cyclone events. SEEDS disseminated cyclone advisories generated through the Sunny Lives model, ensuring timely
evacuation of the people from the vulnerable areas and taking refuge at safer places.

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