UC Berkeley develops hydrodynamic digital twin for Pajaro River flood risk management

UC Berkeley researchers are developing a hydrodynamic digital twin of the Lower Pajaro River Valley as part of the Pajaro Hydro-Twin Project, an initiative aimed at helping residents, policymakers, and researchers better visualize flood scenarios and evaluate flood-management decisions affecting the region over time. The project focuses on the communities of Watsonville and Pajaro, located in Monterey County, California.

The Pajaro River region has experienced multiple major flood events since its levee system was completed in 1949. In early March 2023, a levee breach on the Pajaro River inundated the town of Pajaro, an unincorporated community of approximately 3,000 residents in Monterey County. The event has since informed the direction of the project, with researchers working in close coordination with the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency and other community and government partners to incorporate planned levee upgrades into the digital twin model.

Unlike conventional two-dimensional flood maps, the digital twin is designed to provide a three-dimensional and dynamic representation of flood risk. The platform is intended to integrate multiple factors into flood-risk planning and decision-making, including climate change, ecological impacts, infrastructure performance, social vulnerability, and community priorities.

The project is led by Dr. Anna Serra-Llobet, Senior Scientist at the Berkeley Center for Smart Infrastructure, and Professor Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos of UC Berkeley's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The interdisciplinary team includes researchers from UC Berkeley, VRVis GmbH, North Carolina State University, and additional project partners. In April 2026, members of the project team visited Watsonville and Pajaro to assess the existing levee system, review planned infrastructure upgrades, and examine areas affected by the March 2023 breach.

The research also examines how digital twins can be combined with sensing and monitoring technologies to evaluate the condition and performance of levees and other critical infrastructure. Professor Kenichi Soga, Director of the Berkeley Center for Smart Infrastructure, has noted that digital twinning and infrastructure monitoring can help researchers understand how infrastructure behaves as it ages and faces increasingly frequent climate-related stresses.

If successful, the methods developed through the Pajaro Hydro-Twin Project could be applied to other flood-prone communities across California.