Confidently manage flood model data at scale

Sophia Buchanan, ANZ Regional Product Lead for Flood Products at Jacobs

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An Organisation-Level Solution

Each year, millions of dollars are invested in developing flood models for a wide range of applications, from informing policy and planning to guiding infrastructure and site design. Unfortunately, managing these models remains a significant challenge and is often overlooked. Poor model management results in flood knowledge being retained by individual modellers, rather than being transferred to the broader business and client – often a government organisation. 

Smaller teams typically lack the IT expertise or resources to implement bespoke management systems, while larger organisations struggle to maintain consistency across individuals and offices. As a result, models are often lost, misused, or rendered unusable to anyone beyond the original modeller. 

Flood Platform is the first purpose-built solution for managing flood models. At Jacobs, it’s enabling us to unlock the full value of our models, preserving knowledge, improving collaboration, and extending their utility well beyond a single project. 

Why Flood Platform?

Flood Platform is a secure, web-based solution that enables agencies and stakeholders to collaborate on flood risk modelling and infrastructure planning, without the need for hydraulic modelling software licences or GIS experience.

It centralises data, streamlines simulation workflows, and improves transparency - helping flood professionals make faster, evidence-based decisions to protect communities and infrastructure. 

Easily Locate Model Files   

Flood Platform makes it easy to locate and review previously developed flood models using both the Global Mapper and Catalogue views. Users can find a location of interest on the global map and view projects in the area or search the Catalogue for project names or tags. This accessibility enables teams to efficiently re-use and repurpose existing models, significantly reducing future project costs and effort. 

Model files and key results can be visualised directly within Flood Platform, eliminating the need for file downloads, unzipping, third-party software installations, or access to internal servers. This streamlined approach allows users to quickly understand the modelling completed in a region, identify the type of model used, and see who developed it. It also ensures projects no longer stall if the main modeller is unavailable. 

Anyone in the project team can access the model files including a reviewer without the need for multiple emails, phone calls or cumbersome data transfers – just add them as a member to the team.  

Multi-level Access Management for Collaboration 

Flood Platform makes sharing and collaborating on models easy through the Roles and Permissions function. Individual contributors or viewers can be quickly added as members to an Organisation, a Teamspace (group of Projects) or a specific Project. Each member is assigned a Role: Admin, Member, Owner or Viewer with capabilities for each role being customisable using the Permissions settings.   

Jacobs undertake a lot of work for water companies and government agencies which often require limiting access to project data. Confidential projects can be managed with ease through the Roles and Permissions function, eliminating the need for private networks or cumbersome IT setups.  

Scalable, Cost-Effective and Secure Storage 

It’s no secret that flood modelling teams can be a thorn in IT’s side when it comes to storage. The flood teams at Jacobs have huge storage requirements compared to other parts of the business, and it needs to be fast, accessible and regularly backed up.  

Flood Platform has been built specifically for managing flood models, offering virtually unlimited storage capacity, paired with flexible licensing that allows organisations to pay only for what they need, when they need it. Organisational Admins also benefit from full visibility into storage usage across Teamspaces, enabling better cost tracking and resource management across teams and projects.  

It’s also secure, utilising Microsoft Azure’s cloud infrastructure leveraging its state of the art, multi-layered security. Data stored within Flood Platform is securely encrypted at rest, and is restricted by default and fully backed up. 

All members, including Viewers are required to use Multi-Factor Authentication to access Flood Platform to ensure all data is protected and accessed by those who need it. 

Final Thoughts

It’s time to recognise flood models as long-term assets with value unlocked through effective data management. Flood Platform is helping us shift model knowledge beyond individual modellers and into the hands of the broader team, client and future projects.  

The platform is continuously evolving, with new features and capabilities added almost weekly. This rapid innovation empowers our teams to gain deeper insights and consistently deliver greater value. 

If you're curious about how Flood Platform can support your next project, contact me. We’d love to show you what’s possible. 

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Sophia Buchanan

Sophia is the ANZ Product Lead for Flood Products at Jacobs. Growing up surrounded by waterways on Australia’s coastline, Sophia is passionate about supporting peers in ANZ with technology that solves water problems.