 |
| The monitoring gagdet at Batac's Quiaoit River |
By Leilanie G.
Adriano
Staff Reporter
BATAC CITY, Ilocos
Norte—To promote science-based information gathering and to assist in deciding
critical issues based on facts, a new website featuring real-time monitoring of
critical watershed areas in the Philippines is now available to end users,
particularly those involved in disaster preparedness and risk reduction from
the national line agencies down to the remotest barangays in the country.
Hosted by the
state-run Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) in Batac City, the National
Research and Development Project for Watershed Management in the Philippines (NRDPWMP)
was formally launched on February 14, an online database containing vital
information, researchers and scientists gather from at least three learning
watershed areas initially identified by a team of experts to establish a long
term watershed database in support of science-based policy and management
decision making. Funded by the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic, and
National Resources Research and Development-Department of Science and
Technology (PCARRD-DOST), the project was established jointly with the MMSU,
University of the Philippines-Los Baños, and the Department of Environment and
Natural Resources.
Dr. Rex Victor
Cruz, University of the Philippines-Los Baños chancellor and NRDPWMP project
leader, said information such as vulnerability assessment, characterization of
watershed’s physical, bio-ecological and socio-economic aspects including
installation of instrumentation and real-time monitoring of watersheds can now
be accessible through the web-based watershed management system.
To date, there are
at least three project sites featured in the website. These are the
Pagsanjan-Lumban watershed in Laguna de Bay basin, Saug in Davao and Compostela
province and Quiaoit river in Batac City, Ilocos Norte. All three have in place
automated weather stations and solar-powered water level monitoring stations to
monitor stream discharge and meteorological conditions to provide real-time
information readily available to communities to aid in disaster risk
management.
“What we want is
for watershed information, knowledge and tools to be readily available to our
watershed stakeholders so that they can make decisions on the basis of
information and science and not merely on the basis of intuition, gut feeling
or even worse, on the basis of political consideration,” said Cruz during the
February 14 launching at the ground floor of the MMSU library in Batac.
Also, the project
leader is inviting other government agencies such as the Department of Energy,
National Power Corporation, National Irrigation Authority and other concerned
institutions to partner with the NRDPWMP and share their watershed database in
the portal to make readily available information to those working in
watersheds.
To keep pace with
the fast trend of information technology, the project’s first phase was started
in 2012 to be completed in 2015.
“We hope to expand
more in the next phase by adding seven more learning watersheds in the web,”
Cruz added.
For her part, MMSU
Pres. Dr. Miriam Pascua lauded the project staff for coming out with a new
portal www.philwatershed.org.
“We are looking
forward to an explicit development agenda that would really use this
information technology now to translate into economic efficiency and at the
same time, we could also use this to respond to the risks brought about by
climate change,” she said hoping this would “inspire other stakeholders to
cooperate in sharing whatever information they have because it is in the spirit
of synergism and collaboration that we will succeed in our quest to advance our
country and help alleviate the challenges we are facing such as poverty
reduction and food security.”
Comments
Post a Comment