Mapping Resilience: A Localized Hazard Assessment for RURBANISE Communities
- Tampei Philippines
- 22 hours ago
- 5 min read
According to the World Risk Report 2025 by Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft, the Philippines ranks as the world’s most at-risk country recording a high risk score of 46.56. It indicates that the nation continues to face significant environmental vulnerabilities for over a decade. While the risks are high, Project RURBANISE is shifting the narrative from vulnerability to readiness through localized data.
The Project RURBANISE seeks to address the hazard risks present in the Philippines while leveraging on the concept of differential vulnerability. This approach prioritizes community-specific variables as critical factors that shape localized climate and disaster risk profiles. As the team pursues to equip community members with the necessary data to drive evidence-based decisions regarding disaster preparedness, emergency response, and long-term mitigation strategies, it is necessary to conduct hazard assessment.
In light of the project's objectives, the University of the Philippines Resilience Institute (UPRI) Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH) was commissioned to develop exposure maps for the nine partner communities. These maps, which illustrate exposed elements within specific geographic boundaries, function as a foundational data source for all subsequent project phases.
A Collaborative Journey
The foundational phase of exposure mapping entails the identification, characterization, and classification of building footprints for established assets, including residential zones, community facilities, economic hubs, and essential utilities. These activities were executed through a participatory framework integrating geographic information systems (GIS) and stakeholder insights. By prioritizing local engagement, the project aims to transition community members into proactive leaders of disaster resilience initiatives. This collaborative methodology ensures that the knowledge and viewpoints of our community partners are integral to the final results, fostering long-term commitment and sustainable practices across the nine RURBANISE partner communities.
Baseline Data Collection
The UPRI compiled spatial datasets—including technical descriptions, subdivision plans, and land titles—from the partner communities to generate preliminary boundary maps. Additionally, supplementary data, such as community addresses and total population counts, were consolidated during this phase.
Drone Survey
High-resolution drone mapping was conducted to capture up-to-date aerial imagery. The generated 2D and 3D images function as bases for mapping topographic elevation and accurate distances and for identifying existing facilities within the community, such as houses, highways, roads, and buildings.
Participatory Validation
Following the preparation of preliminary maps, UPRI facilitated a series of "Online Participatory Community Mapping Workshops" from February 21–29, 2024. These sessions served as a critical collaborative platform, engaging regional coordinators and partner community representatives to integrate local knowledge with existing drone imagery and spatial data.
The workshops identified and mapped Critical Point Facilities (CPF)—essential hubs such as health centers, schools, government offices, and utility stations—that are frequently accessed by the community. By embedding local expertise into the technical mapping process, the project ensures that the resulting exposure maps are both accurate and deeply reflective of the community's lived reality.
This collaborative adjustment process resulted in three primary map outputs for each of the nine partner communities:
Boundary Maps: Defining the precise spatial extent and borders of each community.
Building Footprint Maps: Identifying individual structures and classifying their specific land use (e.g., residential vs. economic).
Comprehensive Community Maps: Integrating building footprints with transport networks and critical facilities to provide a holistic view of the factors influencing daily life and disaster vulnerability.
💡Tech Spotlight:The imagery captured during drone surveys was processed into three core technical outputs, providing the "survey-grade" foundation for the project’s spatial analysis: | |
Orthomosaic Maps | High-resolution, corrected images stitched together to create a uniform-scale map. This allows for precise measurements of the surveyed areas. |
Digital Surface Models (DSM) | These models provide a detailed representation of the earth's surface, capturing the elevation of both natural topography and man-made structures. |
3D Point Clouds | This output consists of millions of individual data points in a 3D coordinate system, representing the exact spatial location of every object captured during the survey. |
Rainfall Calculation
To ensure the precision of the project's hazard models, the research team integrated localized rainfall data, which is critical for simulating risks such as flooding, storm surges, and rain-induced landslides. Given the spatial variation of rainfall across the Philippines, the analysis utilized Baseline Rainfall Intensity-Duration-Frequency (RIDF) data from PAGASA’s 56 synoptic stations nationwide.
Using Geographic Information System (GIS) software, researchers interpolated these values to estimate conditions for areas between stations, creating a comprehensive 24-hour rainfall simulation.
Hazard Identification
Hazard identification is a critical component of the assessment process, as it involves detecting and evaluating potential sources of harm within and surrounding the community. For this project, hazards were prioritized based on the primary concerns voiced by the partner communities and the strategic input of key stakeholders, as shown in the following illustration.
Flood simulations were conducted for every participating community, supplemented by a secondary hazard assessment tailored to the specific risks of each location. These additional hazards included severe wind, landslides, ground subsidence, and ground shaking and rupture.
A Validated Perspective
The RURBANISE partner communities face a diverse range of environmental challenges shaped by their unique geography. By analyzing factors such as elevation, proximity to fault lines, and coastal exposure, the project identified distinct vulnerabilities that require tailored monitoring and mitigation:
Landslides and Infrastructure Vulnerability: Communities like CASIDHAI and APSHAI are situated on sloping terrain, making their infrastructure more susceptible to rain-induced landslides.
Flooding Protection but Wind Susceptibility in High Elevation: While many residents benefit from being in high-elevation areas, this same elevation increases their exposure to severe wind damage during tropical cyclones.
Ground Shaking and Fault Line Monitoring: With several communities located within 10 km of active fault lines, the risk of moderate to severe ground shaking remains a primary concern, necessitating continuous geological monitoring.
Subsidence and Coastal Risks: For coastal areas like KABALAKA, risks are driven by tidal fluctuations and rising sea levels rather than ground subsidence. In contrast, ULHOA data shows negligible subsidence, indicating minimal immediate risk relative to more significant global subsidence trends.
Additionally, the Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC) conducted a series of Community Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (CVCA) workshops between April and August 2024 across the communities. During these participatory sessions, one of the activities was to utilize mapping exercises and community storytelling to document lived experiences with hazards such as flooding, landslides, and storm surges. The activity aimed at capacity strengthening by guiding residents to identify high, medium, and low risk areas based on past experiences and personal perceptions, eventually producing technical maps that integrate community knowledge with scientific geohazard data.
The Road Ahead
The integration of local knowledge and validated data provides the spatial intelligence necessary for communities to move from general awareness toward site-specific disaster preparedness. This evidence-based foundation marks the next chapter of our journey: translating digital insights into localized, community-led management plans that are as accurate as they are actionable.
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Research supported by CLARE is bridging critical gaps between science and action: developing new tools and supporting partner governments, communities, and the private sector to use evidence and innovation to drive effective solutions to the climate challenge, whilst building capacity of both those carrying out the research and those using the resulting evidence.
The first call for major research projects, issued in April 2022, received an unprecedented response – almost 1700 concept notes for projects in over 60 countries across Africa and the Indo-Pacific, which confirmed the pressing demand for evidence to inform adaptation action that this programme is aiming to address. The selected projects were announced in June 2023.
References:
Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft. (2025). WorldRiskReport 2025. Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict (IFHV) Ruhr University Bochum (RUB). Retrieved from https://www.ifhv.de/publications/world-risk-report.
Eshrati, L., Mahmoudzadeh, A., & Taghvaei, M. (2015). Multi hazards risk assessment, a new methodology. Int J Health Syst Disaster Manage 2015; 3:79-88. https://www.ijhsdm.org/text.asp?2015/3/2/79/151315