Australia donates 3D geohazard mapping technology

MANILA, Philippines - The Australian government turned over yesterday equipment to generate a three-dimensional geohazard map of cities that officials said will help identify areas that are vulnerable to typhoons, floods and earthquakes with more accuracy.

The Australian Government, through the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and Geoscience Australia, has allocated P260 million for an aerial survey of the greater Metro Manila area using the modern Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology to generate a high-resolution three-dimensional model of a city as well as detailed imagery.

According to AusAID, this is the first time that cutting-edge LiDAR data has been used in the Philippines.

Australian Ambassador to the Philippines Rod Smith said the new tools – which were handed over to National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council and the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority – aim “to transform the country’s approach to assessing disaster risk and reduce the vulnerability to future natural disasters of millions of Filipinos living in Metro Manila.”

Smith said the information generated by the project will allow local officials “to identify suitable areas to set up local economic hubs free from threats of natural hazards or determine which public infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools, require retrofitting so that they become hazard-resilient.”

Over the next two years, he said Australia will partner with relevant Philippine agencies to use the LiDAR data to build more accurate risk profiles of Metro Manila to model the effects of disasters in terms of human casualties, damage to houses and critical infrastructure, and crop losses.