DOST, Project NOAH debate fate of open weather data

Government-funded risk reduction and management program Project NOAH (Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards) is set to be turned over to Philippine government agencies this year, but concern lingers over the fate of its output.

The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) on Sunday, February 5, sent out a press release clarifying its stand on Project NOAH's fate. The DOST reiterated its assurance that the technology and expertise developed under Project NOAH will be mostly absorbed by the state weather agency, PAGASA.

'Holding back' technology, knowledge

The DOST said Project NOAH should not "hold back" the transfer of its technology and knowledge.

"Project NOAH has developed many tools, generated important data, and trained a new crop of disaster scientists. The service that NOAH provides must be made a permanent fixture in mandated agencies, and this has been the core objective of the project from the very start," the DOST said in its press statement.

"Holding back on the expected delivery or even promise of technology and knowledge transfer is denying the Filipino people of better weather forecasting and disaster risk assessment services," the agency concluded.

Not a clear-cut problem

However, the problem isn't so clear-cut, the Project NOAH team said in its response issued on Monday.

In the first place, according to the Project NOAH team, some 20 separate component sub-projects fall under its aegis—most of which are handled by different teams.

"The responsibility for sharing the respective outputs of the 20 programs to PAGASA is with the respective project (or program) leaders. (Project NOAH executive director Dr. Mahar Lagmay) cannot turn over what he does not have because the other 17 funded activities are not his projects," Project NOAH's statement read.

"Out of the 20, 3 were directly under Lagmay's supervision as a project leader. These 3 projects... represent only 3% of the total budget of the 20 projects under the NOAH program," it added.

The push for open data

The Project NOAH team also questioned the criticism leveled against it by the DOST, arguing that the project's scientists have always advocated an "Open Data" framework for the public's benefit.

The international "open data movement" seeks to allow raw data to be freely accessible by the public at large. Initiatives such as data.gov.ph aim to put government data in the public domain for closer scrutiny and collaboration.

"The NOAH scientists believe in Open Data and people empowerment and have been working hard to deliver the output of all the projects under NOAH, free of charge, viewable and downloadable in the NOAH website (noah.dost.gov.ph)," the team stressed. 

"To say that we are holding back expected deliveries, technology and knowledge misleads the Filipino people," it underscored.

While PAGASA and other agencies under the DOST do offer data to the public, these are usually only made available on request and are supposed to be carefully curated so as to help ensure accuracy and to minimize the spread of misinformation. — GMA News