Baguio, neighbors boost landslide defense with high-tech tools

BAGUIO, Philippines – In the race against nature’s whims, the Baguio City, La Trinidad, Itogon, Sablan, Tuba, and Tublay (BLISTT) local governments just got their high-tech leg up.

The local government units (LGUs) equipped their localities with updated landslide maps and a comprehensive monitoring system. These resources came from research projects funded by the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development.

On Friday, July 12, disaster officials from BLISTT received landslide susceptibility maps, risk maps, rainfall threshold data, landslide sensors, monitoring systems, and mobile applications.

These tools were born from the Modeling and Understanding Landslide Events (MULAT) program of BLISTT. This initiative, which ran from July 2022 to July 2024, focused on analyzing rainfall thresholds and their direct impact on landslide occurrences. The LGUs initiated the program in collaboration with the University of the Philippines Baguio and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) in Cordillera.

Dymphna Nolasco Javier, MULAT-BLISTT’s program head, expressed hope that the information on rainfall-induced landslides maps would be used by LGUs to update their disaster management plans.

Nathaniel Vincent Lubrica, project leader of the Cordillera Administrative Landslide Monitoring Integrated Toolbox, said that the website and mobile application will be introduced to the BLISTT LGUs in the coming months for testing and monitoring.

“Hopefully, the LGUs will see the importance of the technology and integrate this in their disaster and emergency operations,” Lubrica said.

Citing MGB records, Lubrica said the mountainous Cordillera region is among the areas in the country most prone to landslides, which are often triggered by heavy rainfall. – Rappler.com