Engr. Meriam M.Santillan, Engage Caraga’s program leader, presented the program to Mayor Avelina S. Rosales and Vice Mayor Larry Bautista. She introduced the five component projects of the program — 1) Impact Assessment of Phil-LiDAR 1 and GeoSAFER Agusan Projects; 2) Needs Assessment of LGUs on Building Flood Hazard Resilience and Reducing Vulnerability; 3) Flood Hazard Map Enhancement and Generation of Additional Products and Services; 4) Full Operationalization of Mindanao Data Sharing Environment (MinDSEt) and Enhancement/Updating of the Flood Event Visualization and Damage Estimations (Flood EViDEns); and 5) Capability Building Activities on Flood Resilience and Reducing Vulnerability. Also present during the meeting are the personnel of the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management office of LGU Las Nieves, represented by Ms. Angelica Jugao and Mr. Jover Manliguez.

LGU Las Nieves was chosen to be one of the partners/beneficiaries of the program due to its vulnerability to flooding caused by the recent tropical cyclones. A flood monitoring device is also set to be installed along the part of the Agusan River in Las Nieves.

Engage Caraga is a community extension program that aims to engage Caraga LGUs on the use of GeoSAFER hazard maps and other project outputs in building resilience and reducing vulnerability to flood hazards.

Engr. Santillan was accompanied by the project leaders and members of the component projects, Engr. Lorie Cris Asube, Engr. Arturo Cauba, Engr. Kendel Bolanio; Engr. Stephanie Mae Albores; and Mr. Rex Makinano. The team is set to return to the site to conduct impact and needs assessment surveys, capability building activities, the installation of the water level sensor and automatic rain gauge, and MOA signing.