Vertical veggie garden with fish tank

Just a small space measuring 1 meter x 2. 5 meters with plenty of sunlight is enough for you to raise your fish and grow your veggies too.  

This system for farming fish and plants together, called aquaponics, was featured in the recently held National Science and Technology Week (NSTW).  

The fish waste provides the nutrients for the plants, while the plants filter the water for the fish.  

A pump is used to circulate the water from the fish tank (blue container) into the series of tubes where the plants are contained and back into the fish tank.   

The setup shown is best suited for raising tilapia, and other freshwater fish, and growing leafy vegetables such as pechay, lettuce, and kangkong. For more details call S&T Media Service at (02) 837-7520.

DOST disaster info roadshow off to SOCCSKSARGEN

Now on the homestretch, “Iba Na ang Panahon (INAP):Science for Safer Communities”  -  a collaboration between the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Department of the Interior and Local Government, and the Office of Civil Defense, turns  to SOCCSKSARGEN region for its second to the last leg of information and education campaigns (IECs) for disaster mitigation and preparedness.

The SOCCSKSARGEN leg will be held from May 26-27, 2014 at the KCC  Convention Center in General Santos City, South Cotabato.  The city has just re-organized its  City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council for a more effective disaster management program.

The regional IECs constitute a nationwide roadshow which began in March 2014 to arm local government units (LGUs)  with disaster information  via science-based tools  like 3D hazard maps, flood models, Project NOAH website, hazard simulation software, and mobile applications.

Provincial governors, city and municipal mayors, disaster risk reduction and city planning officers, as well as LGU consultants are expected to attend the two-day event which will focus  on local hazard risks in the region. 

According to DOST Secretary Mario G. Montejo, INAP “embraces  the change in our seasonal climate and weather patterns  and  the severity of the impact of weather-related natural hazards in the country.”

In recent years, the region, composed of the provinces of South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, and the city of General Santos, has experienced its share of natural calamities including heavy rainfall which caused flooding and landslides in 2012. The catastrophe led to the evacuation of hundreds of families in General Santos City and Alabel.  Several houses and highways were also submerged in 1-2 meters of floodwater in General Santos as  well as in Sarangani province.

Just last April 20, 2014, a twister hit Barangay Tinagacan in General Santos City, reportedly affecting eight puroks.  

Through exercises and workshops to be conducted during the IEC, participants will be able to identify hazards in their own localities such as fault lines, previous flood and storm surge episodes, and other calamities that affected and may still affect their communities especially in the face of climate change. They will also have the chance to formulate action plans in response to various  disasters  including a typhoon as destructive as Yolanda and an earthquake as powerful as  that which pummeled parts of  Visayas in October 2013.  

“Early warning leads to early action,” said Sec. Montejo. “If our local leaders are able to act early, then they will be able to minimize loss and lead their communities into early recovery.”

INAP will be capped by its National Capital Region leg set for May 29-30 at the Philippine International Convention Center in Manila. (STII)

DOST’s LiDAR technology sets sights on Davao Oriental

Davao Oriental province in Region 11 is one of the next priority areas for 3D-flood mapping via the Department of Science and Technology’s (DOST) and UP’s DREAM-LiDAR program which seeks to generate detailed flood hazard maps and inundation models for early weather information.

Mapping will start in August 2014 and may be completed by September, according to Dr. Enrico C. Paringit, program leader of DREAM which stands for Disaster Risk Exposure Assessment for Mitigation.

Paringit shared this development during the recent Region 11 leg of DOST’s Iba Na ang Panahon (INAP): Science for Safer Communities information campaign held at the Grand Regal Hotel in Davao City recently and attended by local officials and disaster risk reduction managers.

“We realized that these areas really need a lot of attention in terms of trying to update the current set of hazard information that we have,” revealed Paringit. “Because we thought it’s no longer about landslides. It’s not just a matter of saying how resilient your house is against strong winds; it also matters where the house or the structure is located.”

He related that when Davao Oriental was hit by typhoon Pablo in 2012, the major concerns were the strong winds and landslides. However, when typhoon Agaton slammed the province in January 2014, flooding became the main problem. Boston, Baganga, and Cateel municipalities experienced massive flooding leaving some residents homeless. In fact, houses that survived Pablo did not escape the wrath of Agaton this time.

“Ironically, it led to two things. One, those that were previously identified to be safe areas or resettlements, were hit by the flooding. Second, infrastructure which were built to rehabilitate these areas after Pablo, such as the bridges, were also damaged,” Paringit said.

In addition, the changing topography of Davao Oriental which will eventually affect other communities, needs finer-scale topographic mapping using LiDAR technology. This change in topography happened in the aftermath of Pablo as landslide materials coursed through the river systems as additional debris, thus causing the water to find other routes.

Paringit also added that finer-scale mapping will produce hazard information that will be useful for setting parameters of building design that can better withstand fierce calamities like Yolanda and Agaton.

“If you’re data limited, you’re also process limited. But if you’re data rich, you’re also process rich,” Paringit stressed.

INAP, a nationwide campaign,  is a collaboration between DOST, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, and the Office of Civil Defense. The Region 11 leg gathered regional provinces as well as two provinces from the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. Aside from local officials and DRRMs, INAP Region 11 was also attended by member agencies from the academic and private sectors.  (S&T Media Service, DOST-STII) 

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For your information and dissemination please.

Thank you.

Ma. Lilibeth P. Padilla

Public Affairs Unit, Communication Resources and Production Division

Science and Technology Information Institute

Department of Science and Technology (DOST-STII)

Blue Gene to help Philippines get better, earlier weather forecasts

QUEZON CITY, May 17 ---- Stars are falling in the Philippines.

A replica of IBM Blue Gene
https://www.facebook.com/lyndon.plantilla

 Vin Diesel and Sarah Jessica Parker were here. 

So did Aerosmith, Modern English and Alarm.

But is the country ready to roll out the carpet for a  supercomputer?

It is not a Korean pop-band: it's Blue Gene, International Business Machine (IBM)'s  powerful computing machine in the whole of South East Asia to date.

And the machine will take up its residence at the University of the Philippines-Diliman (UP-Diliman)-National Science Complex probably the same time around when the  Indiana Pacers battle the Houston Rockets in the Phillippines' first NBA  showdown in October down Southern Mega Manila.

"As IBM Blue Gene takes local research to the realm of high complex, scientific computing...we can use advance weather modeling software that will assimilate data from satellite, Doppler RADARS and other advanced weather tools and sensors, including DOST-ASTI automated weather stations, water-level monitoring sensors, and rain gauges all over the country," said Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo during the ceremonial turn-over of the Supercomputer Thursday afternoon.

Secretary Montejo said IBM Blue Gene can help extend the country's weather forecasting period from three days to seven days.

"Weather information will be more site-specific or area specific. Using climate change modeling software will come up with better seasonal forecasts--information very important to our farmers---and for better water resource management. We can come with improved climate change scenarios, again, information that is very important to policy-decision makers, " said Secretary Montejo.

In the Age of Big Data, Montejo said IBM Blue Gene can process voluminous data available and harness its potential benefits in terms of information which are applicable to agriculture, healthcare and bioformatics.

  

Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo (third from the left) flanked by UP President Alfredo Pascual and IBM Country Manager Mariels Almeda Winhoffer  pose with Blue Gene behind them.

    "The amount of uncertainty will be reduced because of the tools and the data that will be processed by this Supercomputer," said Montejo, " this is really poverty alleviation because the hardest hit by climate change are the poor."

For her part, IBM Philippines President and Country Manager Mariels Almeda Winhoffer said "this is a direct result from the agreement between the DOST and IBM in May 2012 to jointly build a Philippine System and Technology Research and Development Lab to help accelerate national economic growth."

Winhoffer added that the collaboration is " IBM's response to President Aquino's call for help to support research and development projects to enable transformation and progress in the country."

The first priority of IBM and DOST is to figure out how the IBM Blue Gene will complement the National Operational Assessment of Hazards (Project NOAH), the country's integrated information system for disaster mitigation and climate change.