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My track record and

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my experience and expertise
is primarily in flooding

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and how to use Earth observation
and modeling.

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Computer models, can be machine
learning or numerical modeling, to predict

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and also help to better map floods

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and give this information
to a number of organizations

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during a disaster
so they can help better respond.

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And also then become more resilient,
use that same information

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how to construct or increase 
societal resilience.

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My company, and also for research projects,

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I build a lot of these flood models
around the world.

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And we have a very strong focus in Africa,
where we help communities,

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better understand
their rivers--can be lakes--but

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mostly rivers. So we go around the world
and essentially build bespoke models.

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Typically Earth observation provides
a lot of information

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on flooded area or extent,
but not very often on water level.

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So we use the ICESat-2 water level product, ATL-13,

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because it gives us an acceptable level
of accuracy and at the right

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footprint resolution that we can actually
get this over a number of rivers.

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And we have one particular river
we’re interested in Malawi,

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where we also have another project
where we get local observers

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to tell us the water level on the rivers
read off staff gauges.

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So basically rulers placed in rivers.

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So in a number of days
we get some readings from people,

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and then we want to see
if those readings make sense.

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It's like a sanity check.

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So we use ICESat-2 over
some of these river locations.

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We eventually want to get better
early warning systems.

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So get better models
that can predict floods

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and water level is the determining factor
to describe, okay,

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when the water moves out of the channel
and creates flooding.

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So that's why this water level observation
is so important.

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With the early adopter programs,
you actually get early access to that,

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to such data.

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So you don't have to wait for a long time
until the data gets released.

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You can actually start with the mission,
but also it's very targeted to users.

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So it enables someone like me,
more scientific, to work with an end

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user community that actually should
then also be using the ICESat-2 data.

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You know, in terms of flooding,
I think there's no time to waste.

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I think we need to get ready
for really building

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better models
that can better predict floods.

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So when it comes to these sensitive data,
and when the mission is making

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those data available, I think you want to
have it as early as possible.