Terrain Analysis As A Tool In Land-Use And Development Planning: Davao City As Case Study

Rustico T. Villamor and Noel B. Angeles

INTRODUCTION

It has been observed that development planning and land-use zoning being practiced in the country hardly takes into consideration the importance of geological environment. This has been identified as one of the causes of failures of many development projects. The apparent failure of development planners and project design engineers to factor geological information into their development plans and project designs is perceived to be as a result of their not being trained or lack of knowledge on the process of integrating said information.

The integration of the geophysical environment into the land-use/development planning, project design and environmental management in the Phillipines has been studied as early as 1995. Two masteral thesis on the said matter has been published, namely "The Feasibility of Integrating the Land-use Capability Approach in Development Planning of Davao del Sur" ,N.B. Angeles -1999,PWU Manila; and, "Land-Use Capability Approach in Development Planning", D. Velasco – 2004, UP Mindanao. Both studies are anchored on the Terrain Analysis method.