Lack of funds hampers completion of RP’s geo-hazard map

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said yesterday that fund constraints slow down the completion of the country’s geological hazard map that would identify, assess, and characterize the various areas that are vulnerable to disaster.

The Geological Hazard Mapping, a major project of the DENR’s Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), needs P90 million but it is currently proceeding with only 10 percent of that.

A highly placed DENR source told The STAR that P9 million was allotted by the MGB from its regular budget as the money from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), which would purportedly fund the mapping program, is yet to be released.

Although the completion of the geo-hazard mapping is still considered "within the timetable," the DENR source said the delay in fund release also bogs down the project.

To date, the MGB has reported the accomplishment of 115 geo-hazard maps in 2004 and 108 geo-hazard maps in 2005 in the municipal level with a ratio of 1:250,000 scale of flood and landslide susceptibility map at nationwide level.

The MGB is "zooming in" the maps to become 1:50,000-scale for it to become more specific and exact. At this point, the MGB has merely accomplished around 30 geo-hazard maps, which is even less than five percent of the target 840 priority towns in the country.

The DENR has so far issued the list of priority geo-hazard areas in the country. The list was released around middle of 2005.

The geo-hazard mapping, which includes flood susceptibility and landslide susceptibility maps, is a three-year project that began last year. The MGB’s proposed budget for the program is P90 million, which will cover 840 priority municipalities nationwide.

Its funding was initially committed as additional fund insertion in the 2005 DENR budget. However, the bicameral meeting for the 2005 budget hearing was not held, prompting the MGB to realign P9 million from its regular budget to cover the mapping of 105 towns until the end of 2005.

This month, the DBM reportedly approved Special Appropriation Release Order (SARO) worth P63.5 million, as supplemental budget for MGB’s geo-hazard mapping. The amount will cover 330 priority municipalities across the country.

But the money is yet to be actually released to the MGB, the source said.

Meanwhile, P30 million was issued to the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA) to update its topographic mapping of priority areas in support of the MGB’s geo-hazard mapping program.

The MGB is using NAMRIA’s map as base for the drawing of its geologic map, which will aid resource assessment and land management use, and geo-hazard map, which is aimed to reduce negative impacts of natural or geological hazards on local populace.

The MGB said catastrophic events brought on by natural hazards during the last few years served as an eye opener to hasten the geo-hazard mapping project so appropriate remedial, mitigating, and disaster management measures can be put in place.