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UP NOAH ready to provide preventive information if brought back to the NDRRMC

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Wena Cos, ABS-CBN News

MANILA - The University of the Philippines Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH), also previously known as Project NOAH, is ready to help to the government and the country should the new administration decide to bring it back to the National Disaster Risk Reduction ad Management Council (NDRRMC), its Director Dr. Mahar Lagmay said on Monday. &quot;It will all depend on the administration, of course, that is the decision of the government, but we are here to help the government and ready to help the country,&quot; Lagmay said.Project NOAH, launched in 2012, led some of the country&#x27;s top scientists to provide &quot;hazard-specific, area-focused, and time-bound information&quot; for disaster risk reduction. Lagmay clarified that the project, which now goes by UP NOAH, is still funded by the government through the University of the Philippines and is the core component of UP Resilience Institute, where Lagmay is Executive Director. UP NOAH still helps local government units and provides them with necessary information for disaster risk reduction, but no longer has the coverage provided by being part of the NDRRMC.&quot;We are not part of NDRRMC anymore, we stopped being part of NDRRMC, providing information so that NDRRMC could provide the warnings, which are hazard-specific, area-focused, and time-bound,&quot; Lagmay cleared. Project NOAH was removed from the Pre-Disaster Risk Assessment of NDRRMC in 2017.Lagmay stressed the importance of being able to identify hazard areas during a disaster, saying while weather disturbances will keep occurig, casualties caused by them can be prevented. &quot;We have to get used to this, because it happens year after year. The analysis would be, this is a constant threat to us. Rainfall will always come, we are in the typhoon belt,&quot; Lagmay said. &quot;Water does not kill if it comes from the sky. We need to translate these rainfall predictions into hazard maps, because it&#x27;s the floods and landslides that get triggered by the rains that kill,&quot; he added.With dozens confirmed dead due to the floods, Lagmay explained that Paeng&#x27;s weather pattern was not unprecedented.<ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/10/30/22/paeng-leaves-48-dead-more-than-900k-affected-ndrrmc">Paeng leaves 48 dead, more than 900,000 affected: NDRRMC</a></li></ul>&quot;There was debris flow in Maguindanao, something similar to what happened during Pablo in Barangay Andap, New Bataan, Compostela Valley where the floods were not just rampaging water, but it was composed of 80 percent rocks with 20 percent water. That&#x27;s what happened in Kusiong, Maguindanao,&quot; Lagmay said. Lagmay said a storm does not have to be very strong to affect a large area and cause widespread flooding. &quot;There were several times we had cyclones and tropical storms not typhoon wind strength that devastated many parts of the country. [Typhoon] Sendong was a tropical storm and it affected Iligan and Cagayan de Oro,&quot; Lagmay said.&quot;In terms fo spatial distribution, that has happened also before, there were instances during Nona it traversed somewhere between Batangas and Mindoro, and yet there were a lot of rains that were dumped in Aurora that created debris flows,&quot; he added.Preparation can be made by looking at maps, taking cue to evacuate if residing in a hazardous area, Lagmay said.&quot;Hazards are the ones that kill: strong winds which make trees fall and rooftops peel, storm surges brought by strong winds, floods and land slides triggered by heavy rainfall. These are the ones we should look at in hazard maps, we should know our neighborhood if we are threatened or not by these four hazards,&quot; he said. Disaster casualties went down by 1,000 since NOAH was operational; annual disaster casualties averaged at 1,250 from 1986 to 2012, but 2014 data revealed only 250 casualties from disasters, Lagmay said. &quot;I hope that could still continue, because that shows we did something, that we were able to decrease the number of fatalities, I hope that the next years will not get the number of casualties to increase again with each passing storm,&quot; he said.Weather disturbances like storms and typhoons are a constant threat to the Philippines, only aggravated by climate change. Information is integral for disaster risk reduction and management, but Lagmay admitted that while UP NOAH remains operational and ready to help, it has limited capacity today. UP NOAH no longer has access to tools which provide near-real time rainfall data; of its 2,000 sensors deployed only few remain optional.&quot;We need to know where it will rain, how much amount of rain will be dumped, the exact location, so that we can prepare, so that everybody will know whether their place is safe or not,&quot; Lagmay said.&quot;Know the hazards in your neighborhood. Each and everyone should know when there is a warning, whether their place is safe, and where they need to go,&quot; he added.<figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=2317743" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div>

Project NOAH, launched in 2012, led some of the country's top scientists to provide 'hazard-specific, area-focused, and time-bound information' for disaster risk reduction. 

UP NOAH ready to provide preventive information if brought back to the NDRRMC

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UP NOAH ready to provide preventive information if brought back to the NDRRMC

Wena Cos,

ABS-CBN News

Published Oct 31, 2022 12:58 PM PHT

|

Updated Oct 31, 2022 01:28 PM PHT

Read More:

Project NOAH

UP NOAH

NDRRMC

Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards

UP Resilience Institute

Mahar Lagmay

Paeng

PaengPH

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