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DOST launches flood hazard maps’ web portal


The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) launched on Wednesday a web portal dedicated to accessing flood hazard maps.

The United Nations said the Philippines is one of the countries with the most number of disasters over the past 20 years.

A total of 274 disasters were recorded in the Philippines from 1995 to 2015, trailing the United States (472), China (441), and India (288). Ninety percent of the disasters are weather-related with 43 percent resulting in flood, affecting 130 million Filipinos.

The DOST invested in a P1.6-billion program to complement other disaster mitigation efforts by the government, including the University of the Philippines Disaster Risk and Exposure Assessment Mitigation (UP DREAM) Project.

The UP DREAM aims to map flood hazards with the use of the state of the art technology of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), a remote sensing technology that uses pulsating layer maps to acquire elevation data.

The data will be archived and made available in the newly-launched LiDAR Portal For Archiving and Distribution or fancifully called the LiPAD.

UP DREAM Program Leader Dr. Enrico Paringit said the goal of the site is to provide and generate the geospatial data, which can be accessed in just a few mouse clicks.

"There's a clamor for these information and datasets that we have so far gathered under the program to be disseminated to a greater number of parties concerned," Paringit said.

The web portal is created to support the distribution of massive data that the LiDAR has gathered so far.

"Hindi lang naman kasi puwede na gamitin lang ang USB at i-access sa computer. Kulang po 'yun," Paringit said.

The amount of data processed by the LiDAR has already reached 290 terabytes. Data this big will fit over 18,000 of 32 GB thumb drives or over 127,000 of 4.7GB DVDs.

The data is gathered from the onset of the program in 2012. For four hours a day, four planes equipped with LiDAR sensors hovered around certain parts of the country to map floor elevation.

Available data aside from flood hazard maps are digital surface models, terrain models and orthophotograph. LiDAR provides a higher resolution aerial image of land compared to other maps like Google Earth.

The data portal, which can be accessed in LiPAD's website, is intended primarily for local government units, which can use the data for land-use plans, emergency responses and infrastructures.

Those who want to access the portal need to be registered, as the UP DREAM is also monitoring the users of the data for security purposes.

The data, according to Paringit, underwent security audit. Some areas that may threaten national security are blocked for access unless users have urgent requests.

As of now, only 10 GB of data can be downloaded for each user, with a daily cap of 350 MB a day.

LiDAR and the recently launched  DIWATA-1 are similar in terms of detecting water levels.

However, Paringit noted that LiDAR has a finer one-meter resolution compared to DIWATA-1's three-meter resolution.

He said LiDAR and the first Philippine-made satellite will help the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration with weather forecasting.

The web portal was launched among the members of PAGASA as part of its Flood Modeling Technology Transfer Training. —ALG, GMA News

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