Crowd-sourced data could help better predict the effects of the tropical storms and typhoons that regularly batter the Philippines and so save lives, disaster risk experts have said.

When Typhoon Gaemi hit the country in late July, Mahar Lagmay, head of the Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH), requested people submit photos of flooding in their area to contribute to the project's flood hazard models.

He said the reports would help test the accuracy of current models and correlate the amount of rain to the actual level of flooding and so help predict future flood hazards.