THE Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) has tapped the Philippine Space Authority for a partnership on the utilization of space science and technology applications to boost the housing and urban development industry.
DHSUD Undersecretary Herry Yap thanked PhilSA for its cooperation toward “a significant leap forward in our effort to modernize land use management.”
“One of the cornerstones of today’s partnership is the provision of PhilSA’s expertise, data and resources to make sure that our assessment processes can be incorporated so that they can provide accurate and timely data to support informed decision making,” Yap said.
The two agencies have inked a memorandum of agreement designed to reinforce the effort of DHSUD’s Environmental, Land Use, and Urban Planning and Development Bureau on the digitalization of the land use and urban planning processes through PlanSmart for sustainable human settlements platform.
Developed by DHSUD and the Department of Science and Technology, PlanSmart is a digital, integrated and automated platform that formulates climate and disaster risk-informed land use plans, open spaces and resilient urban design.
It is also envisioned to streamline the supervision of land use implementation.
The agreement would help develop an automated land use and zoning compliance monitoring tool by utilizing remote sensing and artificial intelligence called AutoCAMn that utilizes remote sensing, geographic information systems, and artificial intelligence to monitor the compliance of local government units with their approved comprehensive land use plans (CLUPs) and zoning ordinances.
PhilSA, for its part, said the deal has marked an important step in the agency’s efforts to utilize space technology and data to advance land use planning, human settlements and urban development.
The tie-up could highly impact on DHSUD’s capabilities in generating updated digital imageries for climate and disaster risk assessment and CLUPs.