Written by: Szarina dela Paz
Photo from: Engr. Ryan A. Ramirez, MSc
Samuel Francisco A. Tiongson, a Thomasian 4th year Civil Engineering (CE) student, was recognized as “Best Presenter” in the 2nd International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering (ICCEE) 2022 held last January 6-7, 2022 in Malaysia via Zoom.
The paper entitled, “Mapping of Ground Surface Deformations and Associated Damage using SAR Interferometry: A Case Study of the 2020 Masbate Earthquake,” penned by Tiongson along with Engr. Ryan A. Ramirez, MSc, UST CE department faculty, revolved around the 6.6 magnitude earthquake that hit Masbate back in August 2020 and its substantial damages to the municipality. The Department of Science and Technology - Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology’s (DOST-PHIVOLCS) field survey in the area, which mapped the intensity of the earthquake, served as a baseline for the paper, validating its findings.
Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) is a technique that maps ground deformation through satellite images obtained from satellites orbiting the Earth. Specifically, in this study, data from the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), a satellite-based radar device mounted on the Sentinel-1 satellite conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA) was used. The data of said satellite is made available to the public via the open access hub found online.
“Using the data acquired from ESA’s satellite, using software and processing techniques—through processing that data, we were able to isolate the changes between two images that are from different dates. Looking at the changes of that area from throughout a specific time period, further isolating and [data] processing we can map the damaged areas,” Tiongson elaborated on the paper’s topic.
Engr. Ramirez, who was Tiongson’s former thesis adviser, reached out to him, pitching the topic of the paper. According to Tiongson, the plan was to submit the paper to a journal or a conference. In effect, when ICCEE, with the theme: Earthquake and Geotechnical Engineering, opened for submissions, they submitted theirs, seeing that it was a good platform to share the study.
Upon hearing the news of the study’s acceptance into the conference, Tiongson was in shock and disbelief to be one of the participants since most of the participants were masteral and doctoral candidates. During the presentation, he said that he was less nervous than he thought he would be. He was excited to share the research since their study’s topic was unique, considering that the topic is a really good procedure that is useful to monitoring natural disasters.
They are eyeing to submit it to a research journal in the future to reach a wider audience. As for local applications, satellite-based remote sensing techniques will be significant to disaster risk reduction management (i.e. mapping damaged areas) as the Philippines is exposed to natural hazards.
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