DOST Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards
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The Philippines being a locus of typhoons, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, is a hotbed of disasters. Natural hazards inflict loss of lives and costly damage to property. Last year, the devastating impacts of Pedring, Quiel and Sendong resulted in a high number of fatalities with economic losses amounting to billions of pesos. Extreme weather is the common factor in these latest catastrophes. Situated in the humid tropics, the Philippines will inevitably suffer from climate-related calamities similar to those experienced recently. With continued development in the lowlands, and growing populations, it is expected that damage to infrastructure and human losses would persist and even rise unless appropriate measures are immediately implemented by government.
In response to President Aquino's instructions to put in place a responsive program for disaster prevention and mitigation, specifically, for the Philippines' warning agencies to be able to provide a 6 hour lead-time warning to vulnerable communities against impending floods and to use advanced technology to enhance current geo-hazard vulnerability maps, the Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH) was launched by the Department of Science and Technology.
NOAH's mission is to undertake disaster science research and development, advance the use of cutting edge technologies and recommend innovative information services in government's disaster prevention and mitigation efforts. Though the use of science and technology and in partnership with the academe and other stakeholders, the DOST through Program NOAH is taking a multi-disciplinary approach in developing systems, tools, and other technologies that could be operationalized by government to help prevent and mitigate disasters.
NOAH's immediate task is to integrate current disaster science research and development projects and initiate new efforts within the DOST to achieve this objective. Presently there are eight(8) component projects under the NOAH program, namely: 1) Hydromet Sensors Development, 2) DREAM-LIDAR 3-D Mapping Project, 3) Flood NET-Flood Modeling Project, 4) Hazards Information Media, 5) Enhancing Geo-hazards Mapping through LIDAR, 6) Doppler System Development, 7) Landslide Sensors Development Project, and 8) Storm Surge Inundation Mapping Project. The current NOAH Program team is composed of the scientist-leaders of these projects. The country's warning agencies: PAG-ASA and PHIVOLCS are also represented.
Within two years, NOAH shall provide high-resolution flood hazard maps and install 600 automated rain gauges and 400 water level measuring stations for 18 major river basins of the Philippines, namely:
The other river basins of the Philippines will follow soon after the work on the 18 major river basins is completed.
The hazard maps are produced with computer simulations that reflect flood-prone areas discernible at a local scale or community level. Such maps are necessary for localized emergency response, identification of evacuation and access routes, road closures during disaster events, siting of key rescue facilities and comprehensive land use planning. The initial output of Project NOAH is focused on the Marikina Watershed. By March 2012, streaming data from the automated rain gauges and water level sensors, flood hazard maps overlain on Google Maps, graphical satellite radar and Doppler data forecasts, and translated rain intensity and volume measurements in terms of warning and evacuation level alarms, hours or days ahead of the flood event, will be accessible online. The output on the Marikina Watershed will serve as the prototype of the efforts done by NOAH and will be replicated for the entire Philippines. Information generated shall also be transmitted using other media and communication channels. Through the use of advanced science and technology, NOAH aims to improve disaster management capacity of local governments and assure homeland security by reducing casualties and property loss from extreme hazard events.
The Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH) program team will collaborate with government agencies to promote and integrate advanced science and technology to enhance disaster management and prevention capacity of the Philippine government. These include: the deployment of instruments and state-of-the-art methods to construct high resolution hazard maps that are relevant to the community and local government units; delivery of readily accessible, timely and accurate hazards information through various media and communication platforms; disaster research and development; integration of disaster efforts by the national government, academe and civil society organizations; and application of a bottom-up approach by communities to resilience against disasters.
To assure homeland security by reducing casualties and property loss from extreme hazard events and build disaster resilient communities in the Philippines by way of establishing research and development platforms and the promotion of frontier science and technology in disaster efforts.
To become a world leader in programs that leverage on advanced science and technology to mitigate the impacts of natural hazards.
Initial Web Development by Icannhas Inc.
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Type in the address shown into the address bar of your favorite browser:
Source: lifesomundane.net by Rex Raymond Torrecampo
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Use Google Maps' tools for locating a place, zooming in and out or navigating north, south, east and west.
Alternatively, you may use the Search Box to type in a particular location. Wait for a few moments for the system to load a Google Maps location, highlight the location and hit Enter or Return.
The default view is 'Terrain'. Use the tools below to change to 'Street' view or a 'Hybrid' street and satellite photo view.
The top menu shows down-arrowhead icons to drop-down information menus that can be superimposed upon the maps.
The Weather Outlook currently offers the probability of rain. Choosing 'Probability of Rain' will bring up yellow buttons which when clicked will pop up rain probability information.
The Flood Map will yield dangerous flood path ways. The 5-year Marikina flood historical danger pathways are illustrated in red, orange and yellow in the second image.
Clicking 'Legend' in the upper right hand corner menu brings a flood hazard legend to help interpret the danger presented by floodwaters. An icon of a man is conveniently shown to indicate how far up floodwaters reach.
The Weather Stations menu yields Weather Stations, Stream Gauges and River Gauges where available.
The Overview menu offers MTSAT (Multi-Transport Satellite) views and rainfall, temperature, pressure, and humidity information. The toolbar to the right shows a scale to help interpret the information.
Doppler radars are specialized radars that can produce speed data on objects from a distance. Clicking the Doppler Menu will bring information from Doppler radars where available. The picture below shows information from the Tagaytay radar. The circle shows the radar's range. The scale to the right allows viewers to interpret the moving objects in terms of the amount of rain they bring in millimeters per hour.
Information at the bottom of the browser tab shows rotating real time information on the rainfall intensity in localities where current rainfall data is available.
Source: lifesomundane.net by Rex Raymond Torrecampo
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Probability of Rain
The percent chance of rain (PCOR) or probability of rain is calculated using processed infrared and water vapor satellite image data in combination with statistical evaluation of historical rainfall. The PCOR is calculated every 30 minutes for all major cities of the country. The forecast is done for 1, 3 and 6 hours lead time. This feature of the NOAH website can be used for a variety of purposes. The primary intent is for disaster preparedness. However, it can also be used by farmers who want to know when to dry rice grain, fishermen who would like to check the sea condition, construction workers who need to know when to pour cement, and even by housebands who need to ensure fresh and sweet-smelling laundry. Its practical application as an outdoor reference tool is diverse.
Source: Climatex.ph
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The flood maps indicate flood height and extent given a rainfall scenario (recurrence interval). By pressing the "legend" tab in the top right of the panel, the flood height with respect to an average Filipino, 5 feet, 5 inches in height can be seen. Three colors representing flood heights can be seen in both the map and legend. The yellow color means inundation less than or equal to 0.5 meters, orange means flooding 1.0 meter high, while the red color represents greater than 1.5 meter floods.
Recurrence Interval
The intensity of rainfall is categorized by the recurrence interval, or how often rainfall of that amount falls in a given area. Both light and heavy rains happen regularly in a certain area, but the volume of rainfall is proportional to the recurrence interval; moderate rainfall occurs every 5 years, heavy rainfall occurs every 50 years, extreme rainfall such as Ondoy occurs only every 100 years or longer. The intensity of rainfall in an area will also dictate the height and extent of flooding that may occur in that area.
Source: Disaster Risk Exposure and Assessment for Mitigation (DREAM) Program
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Weather Stations
Weather stations operated and maintained by DOST ASTI, show the amount of rainfall, temperature, wind speed, wind direction, air pressure, and humidity of a geographic area.
Stream Gauges
These ASTI and EFCOS (Effective Flood Control Operation System) stream gauges show the water level in rivers in real time. Sudden increase or unusual height of the river may indicate imminent flooding. Stream gauges located along the Marikina River show water level categories from normal to critical.
Rain Gauges
ASTI rain gauges reflect the amount of rainfall that precipitate in a given area. This is measured by observing the height of water collected in a cylindrical container of uniform circumference. The intensity of rainfall at a given time can be classified into light (<2.5 mm/hr), moderate (2.5<7.5 mm/hr), heavy (7.6 < 15 mm/hr), intense (15 < 30 mm/hr), or torrential rain (>30 mm/hr). They are color coded as light blue for light rain, blue for moderate rain, dark blue for heavy rain, orange for intense rain and red for torrential rain. The amount of water collected by the rain gauges are measured in millimeters every 10, 15 or 20 minutes. The graphs that represent the measured values are already translated into intensity values in mm/hr.
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MTSAT, Processed MTSAT
MTSAT or Multi-Functional Transport Satellite are a series of weather satellites which contain Infrared (IR) sensors which detect the extent of cloud cover (which may bring precipitation), as visible from space. The images provided by MTSAT provide a view of the clouds and general weather condition of the Philippines and surrounding seas.
Source: PAGASA, Climatex.ph
Rainfall, Temperature, and Pressure Contours
Rain, temperature, and pressure values are shown in different contour maps for the whole country using linear interpolation. By looking into these contour maps, you are provided with a quick look at the rain, pressure and temperature condition of every part of the Philippine land territory. As the deployment of the 1000 sensors progresses, the accuracy of the contour maps also become more accurate. These maps just provide a general overview of the rain, pressure and temperature conditions, are useful for visulatization purposes and should not be used as parameters for scientific calculations.
Source: data from weather stations and rain gauges
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Doppler Stations
Doppler radars utilize microwave signals to detect the distance and sense of motion of objects. Doppler radars, for example, function as radar guns used to catch speeding vehicles. These radars are configured to detect moisture or precipitation in the air and calculate its volume and movement. There are five functional PAGASA Currently available Doppler station data are from Baguio, Subic, Tagaytay, Cebu, and Hinatuan. There will be more that will be streamed online to the Project NOAH website as soon as we are able to work out connectivity issues. The doppler data that you see is not just a pretty image. It actually contains important rainfall information. The different colors of the doppler image represent rainfall intensity in mm/hr and would help you determine if the rain cloud hovering your area could precipitate light, moderate, heavy, intense or torrential type of rain. The colored scale bar with the id doppler to the right of the panel serves as reference to the meaning of the color with respect to the intensity of precipitable rain.
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You can use the opacity slider at the upper right hand corner of the map to increase (slide to the right) or decrease (slide to the left) the transparency of an image. Data from the Overview and Doppler tabs can have their transparency set.
Use the tools on the upper left hand corner of the map. Pan over an area by clicking on the arrows and zoom in or out by adjusting the slider.
Use these map type tools to change the map view. The map is initially set to the terrain type. You can view streets more clearly using the street map. The hybrid option uses aerial photographs. You can look over your house's roof if you zoom in on your area.
Rain probability data are updated every 10 to 30 minutes. Weather stations, rain gauges, stream gauges, and the contour maps are updated every 10 or 15 minutes. MTSAT and Doppler images have varying update time ranges usually around 5 to 20 minutes.
Simply type in your barangay or the municipality you belong to on the search bar located at the leftmost tab of the tools menu.
All stations are automated.
Data used for low-lying areas or floodplains have a higher resolution to produce more accurate flood hazard maps.
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Check the Probability of Rain option under the Weather Outlook tab. Click on an icon on the map located around your area to see the percent chance of rain within an hour, 3, and 6 hours.
Go to the Flood Map tab on the tools menu. Depending on the expected amount of rainfall in your area, you can choose the recurrence interval of a 5 year flood map, 10 year flood map, 25 year flood map, 50 year flood map, 100 year flood map, or an Ondoy flood map. Click on the selected flood map and wait for the magic to happen.
Data on typhoon tracks are not yet provided in the site. However, you can check the MTSAT and Processed MTSAT animations which display the latest five satellite images of cloud or typhoon patterns.
It is regrettable to inform you that NOAH has no authority to announce the suspension of classes.
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Yes. The team is looking into developing mobile applications on different platforms.
Several media platforms including social networking sites are being explored to further disseminate information from NOAH.
Installation of sensors are ongoing. Doppler radars will all be put up in the website as soon as streaming data is available.
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