The Philippine government learned from shortcomings in the preparations for Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 (see R. Lejano et al. Nature 518, 35; 2015, and A. M. F. Lagmay et al. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct. 11, 1–12; 2015) and was able to limit the damage that last December's Typhoon Hagupit might otherwise have caused.
For example, storm surges during Haiyan extended inland by an unanticipated 2 kilometres. Specific warnings of surges of up to 5.5 metres were issued two days before Haiyan's landfall, and were broadcast on prime-time television by the country's president. Despite this, the warnings proved inadequate because the variability of coastal landscapes makes it impossible to judge inundation extent on the basis of storm-surge heights alone.
Following the 2013 disaster, Project NOAH (run by the Philippine government's Department of Science and Technology) prepared storm-surge inundation maps for all its coastal provinces, modelled using high-resolution topography. These detailed maps, along with advance warning, helped to mitigate the loss of life when Hagupit's storm surges destroyed at least 1,800 homes at the end of 2014.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lagmay, A., Kerle, N. Storm-surge models helped for Hagupit. Nature 519, 414 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/519414b
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/519414b
This article is cited by
-
Benchmarking household storm surge risk perceptions to scientific models in the Philippines
Natural Hazards (2022)
-
Are Major Events Capable of Affecting Country Rankings? Validating Composite Indexes of Human Progress and Environmental Performance
Social Indicators Research (2018)