THE Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) of the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) plans on expanding the access of the Severe Wind Estimation of Risk Using Vulnerability and Exposure (Swerve) tool nationwide to save lives during a typhoon.
According to Karlo Timbal from the Impact Assessment and Application Section of the Climatology and Agrometeorology Division of DoST-Pagasa, the tool is being used at present for certain local government units (LGUs) that have the surveyed exposure data, and the agency is now working on making the Swerve tool available to everyone.
The Swerve tool is developed by DoST-Pagasa under the program Severe Wind Hazard and Risk Assessment for Cebu City in collaboration with the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology and the University of the Philippines Diliman-Institute of Civil Engineering. This innovation is used for the impact assessment of severe wind hazard due to tropical cyclones for the target local government unit, Cebu City.
Timbal explained that with the Swerve tool, users can access data on the impact of severe wind hazards, caused by typhoons from the provincial level down to the barangay (village) level. In doing so, this can be a big help to LGU officials, disaster managers and planners to improve their mitigation strategies and develop more effective action plans to be implemented in their respective areas and lessen the impact of this natural hazard.
For more information, visit the DoST website at http://nrdc.dost.gov.ph/ and Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/dostnrdc.
(This article was first published in the The Manila Times Website on November 23, 2021)