Diwata eyed as extreme weather monitor

MANILA, Philippines - A team of Japanese and Filipino scientists is working to enable the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to use its Diwata-1 microsatellite and other weather monitoring sensors to develop a lightning detection and extreme weather monitoring system over the Philippine area of responsibility.

The Development of Extreme Weather Monitoring and Information Sharing System project has been allotted a grant of Y500 million and is a five-year collaboration of scientists and researchers of the DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (ASTI), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Japan Science and Technology under SATREPS (Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development) program. 

JICA said that the project aims to establish the first next generation extreme weather monitoring system in the Philippines and help the country further improve its disaster resiliency. 

“The flooding in Thailand in 2011, tropical storm Ondoy in the Philippines in 2009, and then Typhoon Yolanda in 2013 showed us the human toll, economic losses, and supply chain risks that extreme weather entails,” said JICA senior representative Ayumu Ohshima. 

“JICA welcomes this partnership of Filipino and Japanese scientists to enhance disaster information sharing and research,” Ohshima said. 

Scientists from ASTI and Japan’s Hokkaido University will establish a lightning detection network using automatic lightning and weather monitoring system as well as the Philippines’ first microsatellite Diwata-1. 

The Office of Civil Defense, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and University of the Philippines Diliman are also part of the project. 

The DOST had tapped the technical assistance of Hokkaido University, as well as Tohoku University also of Japan, for its successful effort to develop the country’s first microsatellite and launch it into orbit last year.

Earlier, the ASTI had successfully set up the Philippine Earth Data Resources Observation ground receiving station that allows it to directly receive the satellite images taken daily by Diwata-1 while in space.

“This lightning detection network will be the first that can estimate both location and energy of lightning in the Philippines and could be a model for other Asian countries to help predict intensity of severe weather events and mitigate damage,” said professor Mitsuteru Sato of the Faculty of Science in Hokkaido University. 

Lightning activities, according to Sato, are closely related to thunderstorm intensity and severe weather such as typhoons, tornadoes and torrential rainfall. 

In the western Pacific, the eastward oceanic region in the Philippines is the main nest of typhoons. 

Data from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration showed that approximately 20 tropical cyclones visit the Philippines every year, ten of which are typhoons with strong winds.