SMART Holds Rainfall Monitoring Workshop

By Ronaldo C. Reyes
SST-I, Smart Mentor
Tabaco National High School
Brgy. Panal, Tabaco City, Albay

SMART Communications, Inc. (SMART), in partnership with Manila Observatory, Klima, DOST-PAGASA, and the Department of Education, sponsored a one-day Rainfall Monitoring Workshop, an activity under the Project Rain Gauge -- Adapting to Climate Change, Monitoring hazard. This was held last August 22 at Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City.

The workshop aims to increase community disaster preparedness in hazard-prone areas and heighten awareness on global concerns relating to the environment.

Atty. Angela Consuelo S. Ibay, one of the speakers from Klima, stressed that increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere lead to a warmer world and to abrupt changes in climate. “The phenomenon that we’re experiencing as of now is due to natural and human-made activities especially when it comes to over-consumption of energy,” said Ibay. She advised the participants to minimize the use of energy sources and campaigned for Klima’s project, the “Low Carbon Diet for a Healthy Climate.”

Mrs. Susan Epineres of DOST-PAGASA discussed her topic entitled “Rainfall Monitoring: Importance, Uses and Methodologies.” According to Epineres, constant monitoring of rainfall is critical in flood and landslide prone-areas. “Because heavy rainfall usually causes landslides and floods, it’s important for PAGASA to promptly know how much rain fell in so many hours so it could issue early warnings on any impending disaster to the locals. In several disasters previously, it has been proven that fast and reliable data gathering significantly helped in saving lives, property and livelihood,” stressed Epineres. She also believes that involving government personnel, including teachers, in gathering vital weather data would make way for a more efficient and accurate weather report and forecast in the local communities.

Mr. Brody Sapnu of Klima enlightened the participants on Rain Gauge Monitoring Protocol. He also gave some pointers on data gathering, accomplishing the rain gauge monitoring journal, and submitting the data to Klima through Internet to continuously and regularly monitor rainfall.

A lesson plan on climate change was discussed by Mr. C.P. David of the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He compared the intensity of different natural calamities before and through these years. He also explained four important points in local weather monitoring - 1. PAGASA is only able to maintain less than 70 weather stations for the whole country, 2. the Earth’s system is very complex, 3. hazard mitigation should be localized,and, 4. increasing hazard awareness in the community is a good way to prepare for disasters.

A workshop capped each topic discussed to ensure proper application and learning. Participants in the said activity were science teachers of the Smart Schools Program partner schools from Luzon. It’s expected that this workshop will create a network of monitoring stations across the country via the Smart Schools Program partners and help out in the disaster preparedness and response program of the country.

Participants and facilitators of the Rainfall Monitoring Workshop

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