Two Indian organisations, Gujarat Mahila Housing Seva Trust and Villgro Innovation Foundation, are reportedly leveraging cutting-edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and the Internet of Things to prevent water scarcity and flooding across the country, Google said.

Both these non-profit organisations have been selected among the top 13 local sustainability organisations to receive support from the APAC sustainability seed fund to learn new use cases of AI, ML and IoT models that aid in managing water supply and inundation risk across India.

Sanjay Gupta, Country Head and Vice President of Google India, said, “India’s population could be susceptible to serve water-related challenges across its vast geographic landscape and many climatic zones if global temperature crosses the threshold temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects could occur within this decade.

Google supported the APAC Sustainability Seed Fund, which was initiated by the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN), with a grant of $3 million by Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm in partnership with the Asian Development Bank. The fund helps local organisations to work hard and develop solutions for sustainable practices and combat the adversities of climate change across APAC.

Gujarat Mahila Housing Seva Trust intends to empower and equip women across India in order to build sustainable and gender-inclusive cities by providing proper training and technical expertise in technology, construction and urban governance. Using the grant, the organisation plans to develop an AI-powered model for building climate resilience in Amalner, Maharashtra, to use it as an archetype for a small urban town in India.

Gupta further said, “The project will pioneer the mapping of land use and catchment areas to predict their susceptibility to floods and inundation, which will contribute to protecting natural drainage systems.

The grant will empower the Villgro Innovation Foundation’s partnership with CultYvate to create AI/ML models, a mobile and browser-based application, IoT sensors and satellite data in order to provide farmers in India with real-time insights and advice on irrigation management.