For my undergraduate capstone in the geography department at Macalester College, I researched "Post-Haiyan Adaptation Strategies of Farmers in Leyte, Philippines: Concentrating on Coconut, Sugarcane, and Rice Farmers.” 2013 Super Typhoon Haiyan caused 2.98 billion USD in damage as well as 600,000 hectares of ruined farmland in the Philippines. Leyte, an island in the Eastern Visayas region, is a primarily agricultural island and is highly vulnerable to major storms. Haiyan completely disrupted Leyte’s land, agriculture industry, and the lives of farmers– particularly cash crop farmers of rice, coconut, and sugarcane.

I presented my findings at the 2023 Minnesota Undergraduate Geography Symposium, and for my paper and presentation, I created 2 study area maps using ArcGISPro. One map shows the 30 most vulnerable provinces based on maximum storm surge height, and one shows the land use and cover of the island of Leyte. These 2 maps provide crucial context for my research. I also included a chart of adaptation strategies that came up during my literature review, which was the foundation of my research.

Research results: “I coded the 94 Google Scholar and 27 Web of Science articles by the adaptation strategies mentioned in the abstracts. Frequently mentioned strategies were agricultural or crop adaptation, increase in indigenous knowledge and practices, increase in climate and hazard knowledge and awareness, aid and rehabilitation programs with the help of government agencies or NGOs, migration, and livelihood change or additional sources of income. There were also more uncommon and unique strategies, which were grouped into the code of ‘Other’. Some articles contained multiple strategies, and many articles failed to mention any adaptation strategies, which resulted in a code of ‘Irrelevant/NA’.”