This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Approximately 1.4 million Californians live in areas at high risk of flooding each year, and climate change is only driving this number up. But flood risk can be a tricky concept for residents and policymakers alike to grasp.
Just looking at a FEMA map or knowing that a home is built in a 100-year floodplain doesn't give people an intuitive understanding of how likely it is that a flood will occur—or what could happen when one does. But what if it were possible for people to actually see what it would look like when their community floods and how specific management decisions, like levee improvements, might change the picture? That's the goal of an ongoing UC Berkeley–led project exploring how hydrodynamic digital twins can help California residents and policymakers better understand and manage flood risk.
"Digital twins are opening a whole new world in how we can think about risk," said Anna Serra-Llobet, a senior scientist at the Berkeley Center for Smart Infrastructure. A digital twin is a dynamic, highly detailed virtual model of a real-world object, system or environment that can be updated in real time to mirror how its physical counterpart behaves. As a case study, the team is building a digital twin of the Central California farmworker communities of Watsonville and Pajaro.
Located on either side of the Lower Pajaro River, the city of Watsonville and the unincorporated community of Pajaro have experienced five major floods since the Pajaro River levee system was completed in 1949. This includes a devastating flood in March 2023 that caused an estimated $300 million in damage. After decades of delays, the levee system protecting Watsonville and Pajaro is finally getting a major upgrade.
Berkeley researchers are working closely with the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency and other state, municipal and community organizations to construct a digital twin of the Lower Pajaro River Watershed, including the new levee system. If successful, this approach could be extended to other flood-prone regions of California. It will be the first digital twin for flood risk management created in the U.S. using special software called scenarify, developed by the Vienna Research Center for Visual Computing (VRVis GmbH).
The project is led by Serra-Llobet and Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos, an associate professor of civil engineering who is also with the Center for Smart Infrastructure. Key collaborators include Berkeley Ph.D. candidate Gabriela Paredes, who is developing the digital twin model with VRVis GmbH researchers Jürgen Waser and Silvana Rauer-Zechmeister, and professor Kofi Boone of North Carolina State University, who brings expertise in community engagement and environmental justice. A digital twin is a virtual version of reality in which real-world objects, systems and processes are recreated as accurately as possible in a digital environment.
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