Water Center Virtually Launched the HyDEPP Project

The International Centre for Water Hazard (ICHARM) and University of the Philippines Los Banos through the Interdisciplinary Studies Center for Water held a virtual kick-off meeting to officially launch “Development of Hybrid Water-Related Disaster Risk Assessment Technology for Sustainable Local Economic Development policy (HyDEPP).” This is a 5-year project funded by Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) through the Science and Technology Research partnership for Sustainable Development Program (SATREPS). Project members from ICHARM, UP Los Banos, UP Diliman, UP Mindanao; cooperating agencies such as LLDA, DOST-PAGASA, DPWH, MMDA; and funding agency: JICA and JST attended this event held via Zoom last June 30, 2021.

UPLB Chancellor Dr. Jose V. Camacho, Jr., in his opening speech, said that water, as a resource, is often wasted, mismanaged and overlooked. He hoped that the scientific outputs aid be instrumental in building resilient communities from water-related hazards and practice sustainable water management 

For his part, Dr. Fernando Sanchez, Jr., Director of the HyDEPP-SATREPS project, emphasized the need to work hand-in-hand with local legislators to come up with data driven policies to foster local economic development. JICA Representative Ayumu OHISHIMA highlighted the importance of pro-active participation of the academe and cooperating agencies in collaboration to strengthen cooperation towards climate change adaptation. He further reiterated JICA’s continuous support in the Philippines in disaster prevention and mitigation. 

Dr. Miho OHARA, Japan Project Leader from ICHARM, presented the hybrid-risk assessment framework and development of big data sharing platform that will be the core of all the research activities. Meanwhile, Dr. Patricia Ann Sanchez, Philippines Project Manager, discussed the details of the 5-year research plan where the four main focus research areas of the project were detailed. 

The team that will focus on the data collection and sharing will be led by Dr. Roger A. Luyun, Jr (UPLB); Dr. Masaki YASUKAWA (University of Tokyo) and Dr. Mamoru Miyamato (ICHARM); Assessment of flood and drought risk will be conducted by the team led by Prof. Vicente Ballaran, Jr. (UPLB), Dr. Koki HOMMA (Tohoku University) and Dr. Mohamed Rasmy Abdul Wahid (ICHARM); Resilience assessment will be the focus of the team to be led by Dr. Patricia Ann Sanchez (UPLB), Dr. Miho OHARA (ICHARM) and Dr. Kentaro Taki (University of Shiga Prefecture); and the team led by Dr. Maria Angeles Catelo (UPLB), Dr. Agnes Rola (UPLB) and Dr. Muneta YOKOMATSU (Kyoto University) will focus on sustainable local economic development. 

The frameworks and tools to be used in the project and initial findings on conducted simulations regarding the impact of Typhoon Ulysses were presented in this session. This project will focus on Pampanga River Basin, Metro Manila and Laguna Lake areas as its pilot study sites.

More than 80 faculty, researchers and other representatives of the cooperating and funding agencies participated and also shared their gratitude, comments and expectations for this new undertaking. (Catherine B. Gigantone and Jessa O. Aquino)