A Geospatial Analysis of Geohazards and Settlements in the Philippines

A s the Philippines is relentlessly urbanizing, more and more cities, towns, and communities are exposed to multiple hazards.

Storm surges, tsunamis, and sea-level rise can hit the coasts. Dynamic rivers and floodplains are found throughout the main islands. Extreme winds can hit both the uplands and lowlands. Tremors and volcanic eruptions are scattered across the archipelago, which has an active fault system as its backbone.

For decades, the common response of the government was to resettle communities to other places. But it always turns out that other hazards are present in the relocation sites, too. Instead of being reduced, the risk was merely being shifted geographically.

Furthermore, the relocation process increases the vulnerability of the displaced population due to the lack of services and opportunities in the resettlement sites.

I hope that the visualization can encourage decision-makers and the public to move away from a reactionary paradigm of relocation to a proactive paradigm of reducing risks in existing and emerging settlements.

There are no completely safe places in the Philippines. There are only places of varying risk, and the people’s capacity to adapt.

The individual maps are below.

(originally posted in my old Medium publication, Spatialist, in 2017)