MANILA: In a one of its kind program, the University of the Philippines (UP) has joined hands with the Department of Science and Technology, to use laser scanners inside manned airplanes to create high-resolution hazard maps and a flood advisory system that will enable decision makers in the typhoon-prone country to devise new strategies for disaster risk management.
The program, which started in January 2012, is called Disaster Risk and Exposure Assessment for Mitigation (DREAM) and is unique in South-East Asia, GMA News reported.
The Philippines owns, and operates the whole system — from flying the plane to operating the scanners — and has a young, dedicated workforce with the skills to sustain the programme in the future. The average age of the 140-person DREAM team at UP is just 27, the report said.
The data gathered, starting with the hazard maps, will also all be open source and downloaded online, it added.
Current hazard maps in the Philippines indicate that almost 87 percent of the country’s 300,000 square kilometres of land is disaster prone but do not provide further detail. “They don’t convey practical information,” Enrico Paringit, DREAM program director reportedly said. “You can’t act on it.”
Paringit then offers a refined hazard map on his laptop. DREAM intends to focus on over 250 major rivers in the country based on economic activity or their propensity to flooding, creating about three types of maps for each of the rivers and their surrounding areas.
In 2014, Paringit and his team partnered with 14 state universities in the Philippines, bringing the total number of people working on DREAM to roughly 700. The project is slated to be completed by the end of 2016, GMA News reported.
