The city council has passed a resolution expressing support to the project initiated by the School of Environmental Science and Management of the University of the Philippines Los Baños.
Dubbed as “Project Ligtas (Landslide Investigations on Geohazards for Timely Advisories in the Philippines)”, the project seeks to “generate site-specific landslide rainfall intensity-duration thresholds for the mountainous areas of Luzon that will be the basis for the formulation of site-specific and semi-quantitative early warning systems.”
An early warning system is a system, device, or a set of capacities that “generates and disseminates warning information to enable individuals, communities, organizations, and local government units threatened by a hazard to prepare an act appropriately and in sufficient time to reduce the possibility of harm or loss.”
According to the project proposal, some target accomplishments after the completion of the study, among others, would be Information, Education, and Communication campaigns or seminars for LGUs; historical landslide location maps; and enhanced landslide susceptibility maps.
The project is funded by the Department of Science and Technology and monitored by the DOST-Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development and supported by the DOST-Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources- Mines and Geosciences Bureau.
The recently passed resolution is one of the requirements for the researchers of Project Ligtas to be able to secure a clearance from the Marcos Highway Forest Reserve Protected Area Management Board for the implementation of the project. – Jordan G. Habbiling
April 26, 2024
