Technical experts from the Geo-SAFER Northern Mindanao/Cotabato Project shared their knowledge and skills during the “Training on Watershed Characterization Cum Vulnerability Assessment and Preparation of Integrated Watershed Management Plan (IWMP) held on September 1 – 7, 2018 at the Mt. Sabrina Panoramic view and Resort, Tambler, General Santos City. The training was organized by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Region 12 and was participated by representatives from inline DENR Regional, Provincial and Municipal/City offices.

The Project Leader of CMU Geo-SAFER, Dr. George R. Puno, talked about specific concepts, approaches and important things to be considered in creating an Integrated Watershed Management Program (IWMP). He
also demonstrated the procedure on how to calculate some of the geomorphological statistics using Geographical Information System (GIS) and explained its effects in a watershed management scale.

Mr. Jim Loui Alburo, Project Officer IV, shared his knowledge on the concepts of physical and chemical properties of soil and presented some methods and instruments in collecting samples for a specific soil analysis and purpose.

Concepts of soil erosion and the factors affecting their extent were discussed by Mr. Bryan Allan M. Talisay, the Project’s Senior Science Research Specialist in Flood Modeling, . Further, he interactively shared his expertise in estimating soil erosion rates on a watershed scale using readily available geospatial technologies and Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) in a GIS software.

Subsequently, Ms. Rena Christina C. Puno, the Project’s University Researcher II presented topics in Erosion Modeling including the use of remote sensing technology such as how to obtain freely available medium-resolution satellite images from Sentinel-2 (under European Space Agency) and how to classify land cover using ArcGIS and Sentinel-2. She also demonstrated how to quantify the accuracy of the generated land cover map using Microsoft Excel.