User:Nigslib

website: http://nigslib.upd.edu.ph UP NIGS Library UP NIGSlib website, UP NIGSlibrary website

[http://nigslib.upd.edu.ph UP NIGS Library, The Philippine tectonic and geographic setting predisposes it to a number of natural hazards - typhoons, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, flashfloods and numerous vector-borne diseases. The socio-economic and political conditions in the country also significantly complicate this ominous situation. Numerous recent weather-induced disasters have caused massive losses to life and property and the economic requirements for rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts have significantly impinged into the country's already limited financial resources. With climate change studies predicting more frequent and intense weather disturbances, the tectonically complicated Philippines can turn into a disaster risk epicenter. From various consultations across the country carried out in relation to the DOST-funded project "Enhancing Communities' Capacity to Confront Extreme Geo-Meteorological Events at the Core of Climate Change", local communities appeal for the availability of basic information on geology, tectonics and meteorological systems and how they relate to existing or potential hazards in their areas. These materials are available at the UP-NIGS, owing to its several decades of fostering active research on geology, tectonics and other government agencies and the general public check with when natural disasters strike. Therefore, the availability of materials, technical expertise and available services makes the UP-NIGS an ideal site to host this facility to better benefit researchers, policy makers and other parties interested in disaster risk management. ] Significance of the Program

The Philippine tectonic and geographic setting predisposes it to a number of natural hazards - typhoons, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, flashfloods and numerous vector-borne diseases. The socio-economic and political conditions in the country also significantly complicate this ominous situation. Numerous recent weather-induced disasters have caused massive losses to life and property and the economic requirements for rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts have significantly impinged into the country's already limited financial resources. With climate change studies predicting more frequent and intense weather disturbances, the tectonically complicated Philippines can turn into a disaster risk epicenter. From various consultations across the country carried out in relation to the DOST-funded project "Enhancing Communities' Capacity to Confront Extreme Geo-Meteorological Events at the Core of Climate Change", local communities appeal for the availability of basic information on geology, tectonics and meteorological systems and how they relate to existing or potential hazards in their areas. These materials are available at the UP-NIGS, owing to its several decades of fostering active research on geology, tectonics and other government agencies and the general public check with when natural disasters strike. Therefore, the availability of materials, technical expertise and available services makes the UP-NIGS an ideal site to host this facility to better benefit researchers, policy makers and other parties interested in disaster risk management.

http://202.92.128.3/upnewsletter.php?issue=73&i=1353

The recent wave of flooding experienced not only in the Visayas and Bicol region, but in other countries such as Australia, has once again brought to bear the now undeniable reality that the planet is undergoing a period of climate change. And while world leaders, under the leader-ship of the United Nations, are currently negotiating new greenhouse emission standards to hold back the tide, people on the ground are trying to cope with the reality of it.

According to Dr. Decibel V. Faustino-Eslava of the Rushurgent Working Group (RWG) of the National Institute of Geological Sciences (NIGS) in UP Diliman, for countries such as the Philippines, whose greenhouse emissions amount to only a small fraction, our focus should not be on the mitigation of the causes of climate change, but instead on helping our countrymen cope with it.

“The reality is that we have a relatively small budget,” Faustino-Eslava said in an interview with the UP Newsletter. “Rather than use that money for ‘going green’ initiatives it would be better to use whatever little we have to help people adapt to this new reality.”

Dr. Decibel V. Faustino-Eslava during one of the surveys they conducted in 2009.

Dr. Faustino-Eslava, along with Dr. Graciano P. Yumul, Jr. of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Nathaniel Servando of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) and Prof. Carla Dimalanta of NIGS, has authored the report “The January 2009 anomalous precipitation associated with the ‘Tail-end of the Cold Front’ weather system in Northern and Eastern Mindanao (Philippines): Natural hazards, impacts and risk reductions.”

The paper will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Global and Planetary Change, an ISI-indexed international publication that seeks to provide “a multidisciplinary view of the causes, processes and limits of variability in planetary change.” An unedited copy of the report was made available by the journal on their website late December of 2010.

The paper is a documentation of numerous natural disasters experienced in parts of northern and eastern Mindanao in the first half of January 2009, caused by the passage of the tail-end of the cold front. The disasters enumerated in the report include flooding, landslide and storm surges which caused the loss of lives and property.

In the paper, Faustino-Eslava and her colleagues noted that the “otherwise ordinary weather condition (the passage of the tail-end of the cold front) was accompanied by unusually heavy precipitation sustained over a period of several days.” The paper makes a note of how many communities in the area were caught unprepared for the calamity, as historically, the amount of rainfall has never reached the levels it did in January 2009.

“In some areas,” Faustino-Eslava relates to the UP Newsletter, “the amount of rainfall experienced was 700 times more than the 30-year average for the same period (January 1-18). So the drain-age systems in these areas were unable to cope with such a volume. In other areas, the steepness of the slopes and the quality of the rock and soil caused landslides.”

The paper is based on surveys commissioned by the Philippine Council for Industry and Energy Research and Development-DOST (PCIERD-DOST), and made by Faustino-Eslava and her colleagues in the aftermath of the weather system.

Faustino-Eslava and her colleagues conclude the paper with the recommendation to develop and enhance disaster risk management programs at the local community level, especially in high risk areas considering “a possibility that similar weather disturbances can become more frequent.”

In an interview with UP Newsletter, co-author Prof. Carla Dimalanta of the RWG added that similar studies on Typhoon Ondoy and Typhoon Peping, which ravaged the Luzon in late 2009, have also been prepared by the group and submitted to the journals for publication. “It is important that we have a record of these events for use by scientists.”

She added that aside from studying these events in the interest of academic documentation, going around the country has revealed to them different levels of awareness of climate change and its implications.

“With different levels of awareness you have different levels of preparedness within the communities,” Dimalanta noted. “The grassroots level is the most important, because you are able to talk directly to the people affected.”

Faustino-Eslava adds that the RWG has been trying to reach out to the communities by bringing experts from PAGASA, DOST and other concerned agencies to talk about climate change. “We also have brochures that explain what climate change is, what to do in case of flooding, landslides and typhoons, and brochures that outline what families and communities need to do.”

“Our goal, at least, is to help communities come up with their disaster risk management plans,” Eslava says.