Automated urban waterlogging assessment and early warning through a mixture of foundation models

Automated urban waterlogging assessment and early warning through a mixture of foundation models | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Physical Sciences - Article Automated urban waterlogging assessment and early warning through a mixture of foundation models Lei Zhang, Chenxu Zhang, Fuxiang Huang This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7860340/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract With climate change intensifying, urban waterlogging poses an increasingly severe threat to global public safety and infrastructure. However, existing monitoring approaches rely heavily on manual reporting and fail to provide timely and comprehensive assessments. In this study, we present Urban Waterlogging Assessment (UWAssess), a foundation model-driven framework that automatically identifies waterlogged areas in surveillance images and generates structured assessment reports. To address the scarcity of labeled data, we design a semi-supervised fine-tuning strategy and a chain-of-thought (CoT) prompting strategy to unleash the potential of the foundation model for data-scarce downstream tasks. Evaluations on challenging visual benchmarks demonstrate substantial improvements in perception performance. GPT-based evaluations confirm the ability of UWAssess to generate reliable textual reports that accurately describe waterlogging extent, depth, risk and impact. This dual capability enables a shift of waterlogging monitoring from perception to generation, while the collaborative framework of multiple foundation models lays the groundwork for intelligent and scalable systems, supporting urban management, disaster response and climate resilience. Physical sciences/Engineering/Electrical and electronic engineering Earth and environmental sciences/Natural hazards Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7860340","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Physical Sciences - Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":530031086,"identity":"02c42f9c-520a-4ec6-b44c-8693b1d66426","order_by":0,"name":"Lei Zhang","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA3ElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBACPgbGBmYQgx/CZyashQ2mRbKBeC1QZQYHiNbC3tz8uaDmjt3m44e3STBUWCc2sJ89gF8Lz8EG4xnHniVvO5NWJsFwJj2xgScvAb8WicSGZB62w8lmN3jMJBjbDic2SPAY4Nci/7DhMM+/w8nGM0Ba/hGjRYKxsZm37bCdgQRISwMxWngSm5l5+w4nSJxJK7ZIOJZu3MaTg18LP/vxx595vh22528/vPHGhxpr2X72M/i1wEBiAzBqGBIYIDFFFLBnAGkZBaNgFIyCUYANAAB0dj/uXHudQgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Chongqing University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Lei","middleName":"","lastName":"Zhang","suffix":""},{"id":530031087,"identity":"e6fa7e40-b82e-42bf-8b13-1cfa543e32da","order_by":1,"name":"Chenxu Zhang","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Chongqing University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Chenxu","middleName":"","lastName":"Zhang","suffix":""},{"id":530031088,"identity":"c08dd6a8-af78-4c29-8456-a71ca2100783","order_by":2,"name":"Fuxiang Huang","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Fuxiang","middleName":"","lastName":"Huang","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-10-14 15:44:20","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7860340/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7860340/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":94021885,"identity":"0fa4420e-51dc-4b7e-9b9f-e346651780da","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-10-21 12:35:18","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":26261697,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Article File","description":"","filename":"SubmitUWAssessfinal.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7860340/v1_covered_11f19983-a4ca-4860-9092-6058c642298f.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"There is \u003cb\u003eNO\u003c/b\u003e Competing Interest.","formattedTitle":"Automated urban waterlogging assessment and early warning through a mixture of foundation models","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7860340/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7860340/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"With climate change intensifying, urban waterlogging poses an increasingly severe threat to global public safety and infrastructure. 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