A recent Berkeley News feature highlights the Pajaro Hydro-Twin Project and explores how digital twin technology could help California communities better understand and manage increasing flood risks.
UC Berkeley researchers are developing a hydrodynamic digital twin of the Lower Pajaro River Valley, including the communities of Watsonville and Pajaro. The project aims to create a dynamic virtual representation of the region that can help residents, researchers, and policymakers better visualize potential flooding scenarios and understand how different flood-management decisions may affect communities over time.
The Pajaro River region has experienced multiple major floods since the levee system was completed in 1949. In March 2023, a major levee breach on the Pajaro River flooded the nearby community of Pajaro in Monterey County. As the region moves forward with major levee upgrades, researchers are working closely with the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency and other community and government partners to incorporate the new infrastructure into the digital twin.
Unlike traditional two-dimensional flood maps, a digital twin can provide a three-dimensional and dynamic representation of flood risk. Researchers hope the platform can help integrate factors such as climate change, ecological impacts, infrastructure performance, social vulnerability, and community priorities into flood-risk planning and decision-making.
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 Civil and Environmental Engineering. The interdisciplinary team also includes researchers from UC Berkeley, VRVis GmbH, North Carolina State University, and other project partners.
In April 2026, members of the Pajaro Hydro-Twin Project visited Watsonville and Pajaro to learn more about the existing levee system, planned infrastructure upgrades, and the areas affected by the March 2023 levee breach.
The research also demonstrates how digital twins can be combined with sensing and monitoring technologies to better understand the condition and performance of levees and other critical infrastructure. According to Professor Kenichi Soga, Director of the Berkeley Center for Smart Infrastructure, digital twinning and infrastructure monitoring can help researchers assess how infrastructure behaves as it ages and experiences increasingly frequent climate-related stresses.
The Pajaro Hydro-Twin Project provides an opportunity to explore how digital technologies can support more resilient, equitable, and informed approaches to flood-risk management. If successful, the methods developed through the project could also be applied to other flood-prone communities across California.
Read the full Berkeley News story:
Can ‘digital twins’ help California manage its growing flood risk?