6th National R&D Conference features DOST-PAGASA’s SWERVE project on wind hazard
The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) plans on expanding the access of Severe Wind Estimation of Risk Using Vulnerability and Exposure (SWERVE) tool nationwide to save lives during a typhoon.
According to Karlo J. Timbal from the Impact Assessment and Application Section (IAAS) of the Climatology and Agrometeorology Division of DOST-PAGASA, at present, the tool is being used 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.
SWERVE is a tool 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 (PHIVOLCS) and the University of the Philippines Diliman – Institute of Civil Engineering (UPD-ICE). This innovation is used for impact assessment of severe wind hazard due to tropical cyclones for the target local government unit which is Cebu City.
The program aims to decrease the vulnerability of an area to severe wind brought about by tropical cyclone and increase its resilience by strengthening the capacity of the LGUs and other stakeholders to disaster risk reduction and management efforts.
Timbal explained that with the SWERVE tool, users can access the impacts of severe wind hazard caused by typhoons from the provincial level down to the barangay level. In so doing, this can be a big help to LGU officials, disaster managers, and planners to improve their mitigation strategies and develop a more effective action plan to be implemented in their respective areas to lessen the impact of this natural hazard.
There are three components of risk needed to be integrated into the SWERVE tool: (1) severe wind hazard which determines the strong wind speeds over particular areas; (2) vulnerability, which characterizes the integrity of buildings when exposed to the strong winds; and (3) exposure, which refers to the exposed elements to severe wind hazards such as buildings, population, and infrastructure. By combining these three components, they will be able to estimate the risk in terms of physical damage, damage cost, number of damaged structures for either partial or complete state, and number of affected populations.
As of today, the methods used in the SWERVE program are applicable for probabilistic and post-event assessments, and in the future, DOST-PAGASA is looking forward to generate impact-based forecasts with regard to severe wind hazards brought by tropical cyclones.
The SWERVE project is just one of the R&D initiatives that will be presented during the 6th National R&D Conference, Part 2, this 17 November 2021. For those interested to attend, they may register via this link: https://bit.ly/6thNRDC2021. For further details, the NRDC website may be accessed at http://nrdc.dost.gov.ph/. Viewers may also go to the NRDC Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/dostnrdc. (By Jerossa J. Dizon, DOST-STII)
