OT: in case your school or library is willing to try out these mangrove modules and manuals. please click the link below to read the complete article. I can see the significant role of libraries to disseminate this kind of info.
thank you, stephen ---------------------------------- Shelter from the storm: Coastal greenbelts of mangroves and beach forests STAR SCIENCE By J.H. Primavera, Ph.D. (The Philippine Star) | Updated December 19, 2013 The human cost from recent Super Typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) approaches more than 10 million affected (10 percent of our total population) in 41 provinces, and damage of $12-15 billion (five percent of our GDP), even as we are shocked and awed by the superlatives that describe it — the strongest typhoon, at Category 5, ever to touch land with a diameter of 1,750 kilometers wide enough to cover the width of the archipelago and to make five consecutive landfalls, with strong gusts up to a maximum of 315-375 kph that caused devastating storm surges in Eastern Samar, Tacloban and other coastal areas. Storm surges occur when atmospheric disturbances such as typhoon winds cause coastal waters to surge or move onto land (McIvor et al., 2012b). In contrast, tsunamis are caused by earthquakes and other perturbations in the earth’s crust. Yolanda created surges up to five meters high which were described by some radio and TV announcers as tsunami waves. Surges and tsunamis have different causes, although they may have overlapping heights (three to eight meters for storm surges and five to 20 meters for tsunamis) with damaging effects that are alike. Both phenomena can result in similar flooding depths and extent of inundation, factors which determine the destructiveness of a storm, together with flooding duration and height of waves on top of the storm surge. The total height of seawater during storms is the sum of tide level + storm surge + wind waves on top of the surge (Fig. 1– storm surge, waves). Wind waves are those generated near the coast, swell waves originate farther away and have longer wave lengths and periods. Surges that occur during (lunar) high spring tide when the sea is at its maximum level cause greater damage from deeper and longer flooding. Mangrove instructional modules A school module published in 2009 — the Mangrove Resource and Instruction for Elementary Grades — already differentiated storm surges from tsunamis. Funded by P1 million from my Pew Fellowship grant to cover module writing, production and printing costs, I convinced the teachers-writers of the need to include natural disasters. The future citizens of our typhoon-/earthquake-/flood-prone country should be enlightened at the earliest possible time through formal education on the nature of these disasters so they are better prepared. Complimentary copies of the modules and companion Teachers’ Manual were sent to some 200 public schools, mainly in Panay and Guimaras. For wider impact, I wrote (to two secretaries, two undersecretaries, various officials and consultants) and visited the main office of the Department of Education, to request mainstreaming of the modules in coastal schools all over the country. Half a dozen letters and three personal visits accomplished nothing. Now, the Mangrove Educational Series for Secondary Schools has come off the press. It describes earthquakes by way of a lesson on Plate Tectonics, and explains the protective role of mangroves when a tsunami strikes. But this time, I will call directly on my network of educator-friends, LGU officials, NGOs and coastal high schools willing to try out these modules, never mind the DepEd. read more: http://www.philstar.com/science-and-technology/2013/12/19/1269584/shelter-storm-coastal-greenbelts-mangroves-and-beach Jurgenne Primavera is chief mangrove scientific advisor of the Zoological Society of London; co-chair, IUCN Mangrove Specialist Group; Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation, and Scientist Emerita of the SEAFDEC Aquaculture Department. E-mail: [email protected] STEPHEN B. ALAYON Data Bank Senior Information Assistant Library and Data Banking Services Section Training and Information Division Aquaculture Department (AQD) Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC) Tigbauan, Iloilo 5021 Philippines URL: http://www.seafdec.org.ph Telephone No.: 63 33 5119170 to 71 local 409 Fax No.: 63 33 5119174 Mobile Phone No.: 63 919 4506688 Email Add: [email protected], [email protected] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Filipino Librarians" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/filipinolibrarians. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
