Ariel Blanco

University of the Philippines | UPD · Department of Geodetic Engineering

There is a continuous decline of mangrove forests in the Philippines due to anthropogenic activities and natural disturbances. Through the years, monitoring of mangrove extent was done as part of the many local efforts to manage mangrove forests. However, existing mangrove cover estimates were generated by varied sources with different methodologie...

The study assessed the heat-health risk of the Philippines during 2020 using the MODIS derived Urban Heat Island (UHI) and gridded population data. The study found out that the urban areas experienced more intense heat than the rural areas. It also revealed that the UHI is more intense during March, April and Month or hot dry season. People living...

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) is a phenomenon where an urban area experiences higher temperatures than its surroundings. A commonly observed phenomenon worldwide and is one of the serious environmental problems related to urbanization. This paper assessed the past and current state of UHI in Baguio City, the Summer Capital of the Philippines. Land Su...

Mangroves are important vegetation that provides coastal protection and basic life necessities to humans and different marine organisms. Studies have observed that mangrove deforestation is occurring in the Philippines. Thus, monitoring of mangrove extent and fragmentation for rehabilitation planning is necessary to prevent further mangrove cover l...

Through the years, several studies have attempted to map human settlements using very-high-resolution (VHR) imagery and proprietary software. However, with limitations especially in terms of cost, researchers are now taking the open-source route. For this study, the researchers aimed to perform multi-level classification to delineate residential la...

Manila Bay is one of the most significant harbors in the region, enabling commerce and trade between the Philippines and other countries. Its abundant natural resources have provided for generations of its inhabitants and have driven socio-economic development for centuries. Like other water bodies adjacent to highly urbanized cities, the increased...

Mangroves have been protecting coastlines, nourishing wildlife, and capturing carbon for climate regulation. The decline of mangroves calls for action to rapidly and accurately monitor them. Remote Sensing makes it possible to remotely monitor mangroves from images captured from space. Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 are examples of remote sensing satell...

Optical water type (OWT) classification provides a way to delineate surface waters according to spectral properties caused by optically active constituents. This classification is useful in mapping out spatial variability and describing changes in water quality over time as it uses inherent optical properties to discriminate areas of a water body....

This research examined monthly dengue incidences per barangay (village) in Quezon City, Philippines over a period of six years (2010–2015) to determine the relative significance of environmental variables on dengue prevalence. The data were subjected to correlation analysis, spatial autocorrelation assessment, multiple factor analysis, ordinary lea...

Philippines is famous for its rich natural marine resources and was among the first countries in the region to create marine protected areas (MPAs) that addressed the need to conserve and protect these resources. The National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS) Act implemented in 1992, along with its updated 2018 version—Enhanced NIPAS Act-,...

Sea level in the Philippine Sea is influenced by climate and oceanographic variables such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), North Equatorial Current bifurcation latitude (NBL), and sea surface temperature (SST). Tide gauges in the eastern Philippines, namely, San Vicente, Baler, Jose Panganiban, Guiuan, and Tandag were established in 2008...

The Philippines being an archipelagic country has the fifth longest coastline in the world. Its shores are defined by varying geologic form and composition that defines how sea water could impact its configuration. Being in a tectonically active setting, the country is also affected by ground motion. Specifically, the vertical land motion (VLM) has...

Drag effects of mangrove forests with complex root systems modulate flow and substance transport and promote sedimentation, all of which are linked to mangroves' ecosystem services (e.g., coastal protection, trapping of suspended organic carbon) and resilience (e.g., vertical accretion relative to sea‐level rise). Previous flume studies proposed a...

This present study aims to determine the performance of using the Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) Model, coupled with the Urban Canopy Models (UCMs), in simulating the 2-m air temper-ature and 2-m relative humidity in Metro Manila. The simulation is done from April 22-29, 2018, which coincides with the dry season in the Philippines. Four model o...

After the 2013 Mw 7.2 earthquake that occurred in Bohol, the shoreline specifically in Loon and Maribojoc was observed to shift seaward due to ground uplift. This study analyzes the post-earthquake shoreline movement, specifically a 12 km coastal strip in Loon and Maribojoc, and ground deformation of the West Bohol area through Sentinel-1 image pro...

Trees can improve the walkability of urban outdoor spaces, hence studies have been conducted to elucidate the relationship between tree distribution and walking frequency. However, there is still a lack of tool that could exploit these relationships and optimize tree distribution to maximize walking. This study develops a modeling and simulation fr...

Typhoon Rai has recently affected central and southern parts of the Philippines. Based on the valuation of the country’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), it is estimated that the typhoon has damaged 1,700 buildings, 2 million houses, and 10 million hectares of agricultural land in the affected locations. Given the e...

Air quality reports in the Philippines are primarily based on ground measurements from only 75 regional monitoring stations across the country. The sparse distribution of monitoring stations translates to the lack of a comprehensive and sufficient air quality information in urban areas. In Baguio City, one of the highly polluted cities in the Phili...

Mandaue is a crucial city in Cebu island, Philippines as it links other large metropolises and is highly industrialized. The occurrence of urban heat island (UHI) in Mandaue was already confirmed by a previous study. In this paper, we aim to determine how UHI in Mandaue could be improved by mitigations including increasing vegetation, adding open s...

One of the consequences of climate change is sea level rise (SLR). Near the coast SLR varies at different locations due to the contributions from regional/local climatic and non-climatic factors. Vertical land motion (VLM) can affect the accuracy of sea level observations from tide gauges (TG) that may exacerbate coastal area inundation/flooding. T...

Recent studies have investigated the use of satellite imaging combined with machine learning for modelling the Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration of bodies of water. However, most of these studies use satellite data that lack the temporal resolution needed to monitor dynamic changes in Chl-a in productive lakes like Laguna Lake. Thus, the aim of t...

A large oil spill in Iloilo Straight that occurred on July 3, 2020, as well as a possible deliberate, small but frequent oil spill and surfactant contamination in Manila Bay, were mapped. The method employs the Sentinel 2-1C image, which is transformed into principal components to reveal the presence of oil spills and possibly surfactants. Addition...

Manila Bay is one of the most significant bodies of water in the Philippines; it has abundant natural resources that have been the source of livelihood and center of socio-economic development for centuries. However, Manila Bay is affected by multiple environmental problems and challenges. These include increased organic and nutrient loading from u...

With the problem of informal settlements in the Philippines, mapping such areas is the first step towards improvement. Object-based image analysis (OBIA) has been a powerful tool for mapping and feature extraction, especially for high-resolution datasets. In this study, an informal settlement area in UP Diliman, Quezon City was chosen to be the sub...

Mangroves are considered one of the most undervalued ecosystems in the world. It provides shelter to a wide range of species and protection from natural hazards to coastal communities. The Philippines, being a country with long coastlines, benefits greatly from mangroves. Historically, it had 400,000–500,000 hectares of mangroves forest in 1920, wh...

Products and outputs for water quality monitoring are made available in the IM4ManilaBay MapABLE Web Portal, a web-based GIS platform that serves as a repository of processed maps for Manila Bay and linked systems. The Portal is also linked with the MASDAN mobile application that has been developed to allow the public to report different environmen...

The mangrove forests of Lawaan-Balangiga in Eastern Samar lost significant cover due to the Typhoon Haiyan that struck the region in 2013. The mangroves in the area have since shown signs of recovery in terms of growth and spatial coverage, but these widely varied with locations. This study aims to further examine the status of recovery of mangrove...

The Mangrove Vegetation Index (MVI) was developed to map mangroves extent from remotely-sensed imageries accurately and quickly. MVI measures the probability of a pixel to be a ‘mangrove’ by extracting the greenness and moisture information from the green, NIR, and SWIR bands. The range of MVI values may vary depending on factors such as land cover...

This study entails generation of empirical ordinary least squares regression models to estimate water parameters. It uses remote sensing for environmental monitoring of Pasig River located in the Philippines. This uses measurements of primary water quality (WQ) parameters defined on Department of Environment and Natural Resources Administrative Ord...

This paper presents the development of MASDAN, an integrated platform consisting of a mobile application and a web-GIS interface for monitoring the Manila Bay environment. The MASDAN mobile application uses citizen science and Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) to collect data on specific environmental issues. It also serves as an information...

With the Philippines ranking as the third largest source of plastics that end up in the oceans, there is a need to further explore methodologies that will become an aid in plastic waste removal from the ocean. Manila Bay is a natural harbor in the Philippines that serves as the center of different economic activities. However, the bay is also threa...

Despite the Philippines having one of the widest extents and most diverse seagrasses, there are limited reports on the contribution of seagrass vegetation health to organic carbon (OC). Comparative assessments of OC between conserved and disturbed seagrass meadows in a seascape are also lacking. Conservation programs (e.g., marine protected area [M...

Moderate to high resolution satellite imageries are commonly used in mapping mangrove cover from local to global scales. In addition to extent information, studies such as mangrove composition, ecology, and distribution analysis require further information on mangrove zonation. Mangrove zonation refers to unique sections within a mangrove forest be...

Ecosystem services (ES) are benefits nature provides to humans; these services change in space and time and are largely dependent on context. Coastal habitat that provides key ES are blue carbon ecosystems, namely seagrass and mangroves. One important ES they provide is the provisioning of seafood, which benefits coastal populations with livelihood...

The aggravating impacts of the urban heat island phenomenon in Philippine cities has motivated planners to utilize urban green and blue spaces as a potential mitigation strategy. This study aims to assess the cooling effect (CE), heat reduction (HR), and energy saving potential (ESP) of trees and water along the Iloilo River Esplanade located in Il...

Leaf Area Index (LAI) is a quantity that characterizes canopy foliage content. As leaf surfaces are the primary sites of energy, mass exchange, and fundamental production of terrestrial ecosystem, many important processes are directly proportional to LAI. With this, LAI can be considered as an important parameter of plant growth. Multispectral opti...

Continuous agricultural land conversion poses threat to food security but this has not been monitored due to ineffectual policies. One of the Philippine provinces with a high rate of conversion is the rice-producing province of Cavite. To assess the spatiotemporal dynamics of agricultural land conversion in Cavite, this study aims to develop an ope...

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) struck the Eastern Philippines. Mangrove forests in the area were destroyed and were estimated to have at least 86% of damage. Some studies done on the typhoon-stricken mangroves had collected data such as measurements of mangrove trunk, height, roots, and seedlings to investigate the extent of damage and recovery....

The enhanced temporal capability of today’s satellite sensors gives us large volumes of data to be processed, analysed, and visualized. Most of the conventional remote sensing software and land cover classification approaches, however, are only designed for single-date observations. To fully utilize the amount of data we receive and to improve land...

The northwestern coast of Luzon Island is located within the forearc region of the Manila Trench where emergent coral reef platforms have been reported; and an uplift rate of 0.5 m/kyr has been estimated for the past 7,000 years in San Fernando and Currimao. This study examined the present-day vertical land movement (VLM) in both sites using tide g...

In the absence of enough gauging stations for monitoring lake water level, three (3) methods are presented in this research: (1) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) backscatter from discrete object; (2) Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) levelling; and (3) satellite altimetry. The results showed that the Laguna Lake water level is not homogeneous...

To ensure that mangrove forest conservation efforts are successful, simulation models of mangrove forests are developed to forecast outcomes of different environmental scenarios. This paper presents MaDS (Mangrove species Dominance Simulator), an agent-based model that simulates the structures of mixed mangrove forest stands by considering specific...

Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration, a crucial indicator of phytoplankton biomass, is sensitive to seasonality. The variations in trophic states regarding seasonality and the changes of spectral properties of water bodies pose uncertainties to the accuracy of remote sensing semiempirical models. In particular, lakes in subtropical regions generally...

This study assessed the estuarine-scale dynamics of mixed seagrass beds in Bolinao and Anda coastal areas in the Philippines, where seagrass beds have declined primarily due to eutrophication-induced degradation of light environment caused by unregulated mariculture activities in the adjacent areas. A seagrass model, driven by a coupled hydrodynami...

The complex structures of the prop root system of the mangrove genus Rhizophora attenuate storm surges and tsunamis and promote sedimentation. While quantification of the mangrove's drag force is essential for assessing the mangroves' ability to reduce the risk of disaster and vulnerability to rising sea-level, the projected area of prop root syste...

Satellite-derived land surface temperature (LST) is frequently utilized to characterize the intensity of urban heat island (UHI) effect in highly urbanized and rapidly urbanizing cities. However, current spaceborne thermal sensors cannot capture temperature variations within heterogeneous urban landscapes at finer scales due to its coarse spatial r...

Modelling of land surface temperature (LST) is conducted to be able to explain the spatial and temporal variations of LST using a set of explanatory variables. LST in a previous study was modelled as a linear function of vegetation cover and built up cover as quantified by the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the normalized differe...

This paper analyzed both the horizontal and vertical extent of air temperature variations as affected by vegetation leaf area density (LAD) and building area per height threshold. The current microclimate (Scenario 1) and two potential future urbanization scenarios in Lower Session Road, Baguio City were simulated with ENVI-met. The future scenario...

Advancement in Remote Sensing allows rapid mangrove mapping without the need for data-intensive methodologies, complex classifiers, and skill-dependent classification techniques. This study proposes a new index, the Mangrove Vegetation Index (MVI), to rapidly and accurately map mangroves extent from remotely-sensed imageries. The MVI utilizes three...

Mangroves aboveground biomass (ABG) estimation at a large scale is a crucial to understand their role in mitigating climate change. The large-scale estimation of AGB is generally conducted with remote sensing techniques using stand characteristics such as canopy height and species composition. In the present study, we employed Lorey's mean canopy h...

The retrieval of chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentrations relies on empirical or analytical analyses, which generally experience difficulties from the diversity of inland waters in statistical analyses and the complexity of radiative transfer equations in analytical analyses, respectively. Previous studies proposed the utilization of artificial neural...

An empirical approach through remote sensing generally produces a robust data model of water quality for inland and coastal water. Traditional regressions in water quality mapping fail because the bio-optical relationship of turbid water exhibits nonlinear and heterogeneous patterns. In addition, in situ data are generally insufficient in the water...

Laguna Lake, the Philippines’ largest freshwater lake, has always been historically, economically, and ecologically significant to the people living near it. However, as it lies at the center of urban development in Metro Manila, it suffers from water quality degradation. Water quality sampling by current field methods is not enough to assess the s...

Land use and land cover monitoring is an important component in the management of Laguna Lake watershed due to its impacts on the lake’s water quality. Due to limitations caused by cloud cover, satellite systems with limited revisit capability fail to provide sufficient data to more effectively monitor the land surface. Normalized difference vegeta...

The use of Sentinel-3 Ocean and Land Color Instrument (OLCI) images in estimating chlorophyll-a (total and class-differentiated)a concentration is promising owing to Sentinel-3’s 21 bands. This was investigated for the case of Laguna de Bay (or Laguna Lake), Philippines. Field surveys were conducted on 13–17 November 2018 using FluoroProbe, a subme...

Benthic habitats are one of the most productive ecosystems in existence. Unfortunately, they are declining in coverage globally due to natural and anthropogenic factors. Mapping and monitoring the status of these coastal ecosystems is critical for their protection. One of the tools capable of mapping such habitats is LiDAR remote sensing. This rese...

Dengue is the most rapidly spreading disease in the world with more than 30% of the world’s population at risk of contracting dengue. In 2016, more than 375,000 suspected cases of dengue were reported from the Western Pacific Region, and more than half of these were reported by the Philippines. Dengue virus inflicts significant health and economic...

Urbanization can be observed through the occurrence of land-use changes as more land is being transformed and developed for urban use. One of the Philippine cities with high rate of urbanization is Baguio City, known for having a subtropical highland climate. To understand the spatiotemporal relationship between urbanization and temperature, this s...

Two existing chlorophyll-a (chl-a) concentration retrieval procedures, which are analytical and empirical, are hindered by the complexity in radiative transfer equation (RTE) and in statistical analyses, respectively. Another promising model in this direction is the use of artificial neural networks (ANN). Mostly, a pixel-to-pixel with one-layer AN...

The advancement of remote sensing technologies is a huge advantage in various environmental applications including the monitoring of the rapid development in an urban area. This study aims to estimate the composition of the different classes (vegetation, impervious surfaces, soil) in Metro Manila, Philippines using a 300-meter spatial resolution Se...

For the past few years the United Nations have been standing strong in advocating the 17 sustainable development goals. One of those goals focuses on affordable and clean energy, which includes renewable energy. This study focuses on the application of geomatics on renewable energy, more specifically solar energy. The research aims to determine the...

This study produced spatiotemporal hot and cold spot occurrence maps for Davao City for the period 1994-2019 using land surface temperature (LST) images. Urban heat is theorized to have been affected by some, if not all, of the following impact factors: air pollutant concentrations/particulate matter (PM10), vegetation “abundance” (using EVI), buil...

The energy supply of the Philippines is dwindling considering rapid population growth, thus the need to maximize the advantages of harnessing renewable energy (RE) and optimizing its utilization in the grid. One of the RE sources that is considered practical due to its availability is running water, thus the development of hydropower. The use of re...

Kiosks scattered around the UP Diliman campus have always been playing a significant role in shaping the present culture in the university. However, competition is inevitable among owners. Some have even lowered their prices to attract more customers and increase sales and profits. One of the reasons why some kiosks earn more than others is because...

One purpose of road lighting in night-time environment is to allow pedestrians safe passage and provide sense of security. To attain this purpose, guidelines are set to make sure that proper lighting are present in roads. Current mapping of road lighting in the Philippines is a tedious process. To address this issue, an alternative method of mappin...

Sampaloc Lake is providing livelihood for the residents through aquaculture. An increase in the quantity of fish pens inside the lake threatens its water quality condition. One parameter being monitored is microalgal biomass by measuring Chlorophyll-a concentration. This study aims to generate a chlorophyll-a concentration model for easier monitori...

Extensive urbanization alters the natural landscape as vegetation were replaced with infrastructures composed of materials with low albedo and high heat capacity often resulting to increase in land surface temperatures (LST). The present study focused on the spatial and temporal variations of LST in Mandaue City, one of the metropolitan cities in t...

Sargassum is a brown seaweed distributed in the Philippines and recognized as an additional source of income for fishing communities. Due to uncontrolled harvesting of the seaweed, the Department of Agriculture regulated its collection and harvesting by imposing seasonal restrictions. Hence, the need to identify the locations and cover of healthy S...

Landslides are a major concern in disaster risk reduction and management in Southeast Asia due to the region’s geographic location and setting. These are massive downward movement of rock, soil and/or debris under the influence of gravity. Benguet, lying within the Cordilleran mountains of the Philippines, is landslide prone. The increasing demand...

This study utilized the Analytic Hierarchical Process and spatial analysis using various datasets to produce sub-provincial vulnerability maps with 20 km resolution. Five (5) indicators for exposure, four (4) for sensitivity and seven (7) for adaptive capacity were selected and weighted using aggregated rankings from twenty-three (23) experts. Base...

Unprecedented urbanization in Metro Manila has led to the proliferation of the urban heat island (UHI) effect. This is characterized by a prominent difference in the temperatures of the urban and its surrounding rural and less urbanized areas. Temperature differences occur within these UHI’s indicating the existence of intra-urban heat islands (IUH...

Iloilo City, a highly urbanized city in the Philippines, experiences intensified climate change impacts due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon, one of which is the significant increase in temperature. To mitigate UHI, recent studies investigated the cooling effect of water bodies due to its higher rate of evapotranspiration compared to green...

Land Surface Temperature (LST) is one of the important factors in monitoring urban climate. Observing the variations of LST can provide a better understanding of the Urban Heat Islands (UHI) phenomenon. The aim of this research is to assess the relationship between the spatial and temporal distribution of LST and water consumption in Zamboanga City...

Regular monitoring of water quality in Laguna Lake is important for it supports aquaculture and provides water supply for Metro Manila. Remote sensing makes it possible to monitor the spectral conditions of the lake on a regular time interval and with complete coverage except for the areas with cloud and shadow cover. Along with in-situ water quali...

Mapping of air quality are often based on ground measurements using gravimetric and air portable sensors, remote sensing methods and atmospheric dispersion models. In this study, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and geostatistical techniques are employed to evaluate coarse particulate matter (PM10) concentrations observed in the Central Busines...

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon is a manifestation of the abnormal amount of heat generated in urban areas and anthropogenic land surface modifications. While urbanization can improve material comfort and be a boon to the economy, the accompanying problems associated with urbanization like the UHI effect has implications on health, demand fo...