Residents, government offices, businesses and investors in Quezon City should worry less about losing their assets in times of disasters as the Earthquake and Megacities Initiative Inc. (EMI), in partnership with OML Center, enhances the competency of the city’s technical working group (TWG) through the Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction into Land Use Planning: Developing the Competencies, Tools and a Community of Practice project.

The project aims to enhance the competencies of the QC TWG in risk-sensitive land use planning (RSLUP) through problem-solving mentoring sessions on visualizing hazards, vulnerability and risks using geographic information systems or GIS as a tool, and identifying city risk hotspots and their implications to land use management, particularly zoning.

There will also be sessions on integrating risk hotspots into hazard overlay zoning and its provisions to development regulations, and communicating RSLUP to planners, engineers, land development owners and other stakeholders.

The project started in February 2015 and is expected to end in January 2016. At the end of the project, a forum will be held where the QC TWG will share their experiences.

“The project is intended for Quezon City with the possibility of scaling up at the national level once the training process has been defined and tools have been developed for other local governments,” said EMI senior scientist Jerome Zayas.

EMI is one of the seven recipients of OML Center’s 2014 research grants. (Story by: Kurt Gabriel Ducusin)