Satellites are now tracking flood risks in America's most remote communities—places where a single washed-out bridge can cut off entire towns. Alaska's Department of Transportation manages 5,600 miles of wilderness highways and 839 bridges with virtually no flood monitoring... until now. The new “Water Information from Space” web application, or WISP, uses NASA's satellites to track water levels across 467,000+ lakes and 93,000 miles of rivers, finally giving isolated communities critical flood data. "For projects in remote areas, water data useful to hydraulic design tasks is often limited,” said Michael Knapp, Statewide Hydraulic Engineer at the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities. “With the USGS WISP application, we're gaining insights into river systems never before monitored in Alaska's history.” The system tracks ice-jam floods, sudden water level changes, and other dangerous conditions that traditional ground-based sensors miss. While currently focu...