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Overview (For Hydrologists & Disaster Management)

This page explains OpenFloodAI without any technical background. If you are a developer looking to set up the project, see the Developer Overview instead.

What is OpenFloodAI?

OpenFloodAI is a free, open tool that watches video from a fixed camera near a river and helps you notice when the water conditions might need a closer look.

Think of it as a second pair of eyes on a camera feed you already have. It does not replace your judgment or your team's process — it just helps you catch changes sooner and keeps a clear, organized record of what it saw.

What can it do for you?

  • Watch a video from a river camera and check whether the picture is usable (not too dark, not blocked, not missing).
  • Mark one area of the picture to keep an eye on, such as a bridge pillar or a riverbank marker.
  • Notice when that marked area looks different than it did before, and save a picture of the change for you to look at.
  • Let someone on your team write down what they saw in the video, so the computer's observation and the person's observation can be compared side by side.
  • Put together a simple report showing what was checked, what changed, and where the computer and the human agreed or disagreed.
  • Keep a history of past checks so you can look back at previous reports.

What it does not do

  • It does not send public flood warnings by itself. Any warning decision stays with your team and your normal emergency process.
  • It does not replace a hydrologist's or emergency manager's judgment. It only points out things worth a closer look.
  • It is not yet proven to reliably detect real floods. It is a review tool, not a finished early-warning system.
  • It does not require you to write code or use a technical command line — see the Quickstart for the plain point-and-click version.
  • It does not upload your videos anywhere. Everything runs on your own computer.

Who this is for

Hydrologists, disaster-management staff, field teams, and anyone evaluating a low-cost, camera-based river-monitoring tool who wants to try it without setting up any development tools.

Where to go next

See the Quickstart for how to download, install, and run the app on your own computer.