Multi-hazardous Environment: Phillipines Flashcards
What is the Philippines
The Philippines is a group of 7000 islands in the South China Sea in Southeast Asia. It has a vulnerable population of 98 million people who are at risk from a variety of hazards, including 11 million people in the densely populated coastal situated mega city of Manila, the capital.
What’s the GDP per capita like
GDP in the Philippines per capita is only $3000 per year meaning spending power on mitigation and adaptation from natural hazards is limited
What hazards are experienced here
The area experiences a wide range of hazards from several categories: geophysical (volcanic eruptions, landslides, earthquakes and tsunamis) and hydro-meteorological (typhoons, floods, droughts and landslides)
Tell me about earthquakes in the Philippines
Philippines and Eurasian plates can become locked together as the Philippine plate is subduction
Pressure has created many faults on which earthquakes occur.
1999 Luzon island earthquake measured 7.8 and killed over 1500 people
Between 1990 and 2011 a total of 22 deadly earthquakes occurred killing over 9500 people and causing $230 million in damage
Tell me about the volcanic eruptions
Since 1900 there have been 22 deadly volcanic eruptions leading to the largest recent eruption in 1991, the eruption of Mt Pinatubo. This individual event killed 500 people and led to a global atmospheric cooling and impacting hemispheric crop production.
The cost of eruption damage since 1900 totals over $2.3 billion.
Tell me about the tropical storms (typhoons)
See Haiyan case study for info
257 storm events since 1900 during tropical storm season. Total cost of damage in excess of $6.5 billion.
On average they experience 7-10 events each year. Haiyan had the highest ever recorded wind speeds.
Tell me about tsunamis
Submarine earthquakes have triggered tsunamis in the Philippines.
Tsunami that hit Mindanao in 1976 was 4-5m high and damaged 14 buildings
Tell me about landslides
Heavy rain (sometime within tropical storms) leads to landslides which have killed hundreds since 1900.
Clean up from landslides takes a very long time to do
Tell me about flooding
Coastal and river flooding is common (over 150 events since 1900). These displace hundreds of thousands of people.
List me the different types of hazards in the Philippines
Earthquakes
Volcanic eruptions
Tropical storms
Tsunami
Landslides
Flooding
Tell me about the national disaster risk reduction and management council for disaster management
The Philippines has made strides in disaster and climate resilience over the past decade. Established in 2009, the national disaster risk reduction and management council is a working group of government, non government, civil society, and private sector organisations. The council is responsible for Ensuring the protection and welfare of the people during disasters. the national disaster risk reduction and management act of 2010 was a landmark legislation that shifted the government of the Philippines focus from the emergency relief to disaster risk reduction and prevention the Philippine government formulated a national disaster risk management (DRM) plan to implement the requirements set out by the legislation
Tell me about the Philippine disaster management plan
In 2018 the team published a comprehensive hazard risk management handbook and distributed it widely. The issue is that many of the population lack the funds to prepare effectively.
As a LIC nation, what partnerships have the Philippines agreed to
They have several agreed partnerships to help with hazard response and risk reductions.
These include the Red Cross, federal agricultural organisation, actionaid, the Asian development bank and Australian aid.
Of these, Red Cross takes responsibility for the distribution of humanitarian aid following natural disasters.
Tell me about the three services the government of the Philippines lists for disaster information, mitigation and management
The climate experiment project: software that calculates the percent chance of rain (PCOR) or probability of rain using infrared and water vapour satellite image data, and Doppler radar data in combination with statistical evaluation of historic rainfall.
Nationwide operational assessment of hazards (NOAH): this is a service that aims to increase awareness for disaster risk and involves preparedness and reducing the catastrophic impacts of extreme hazard events.
Philippine geoportal: advocates the use of standard multi scale base maps that serve as tools for strategic planning, decision making, situational analysis and other common requirements.
