WB, PHL Gov't draft 25-year flood-proofing plan for Metro Manila

The local and national governments should work to make Metro Manila resilient to floods as this is a phenomenon that the country would not be able to escape from in the years to come, the World Bank (WB) said.

 

Officials said the multilateral agency and the Aquino administration are working on a master plan that would make Metro Manila safer for its residents in the event of prolonged rains and floods. 14 million people affected

 

The World Bank said urban flooding hampers the progress of Metro Manila, the Philippine capital that is home to 14 million people.

 

“As developing countries like the Philippines transition to largely urban societies, the concentration of people and assets has made urban flooding increasingly costly and difficult to manage. In addition to direct economic damage, floods also have long-term consequences such as loss of education opportunities, disease and reduced nutrition which may erode development goals,” the World Bank said.

 

Joop Stoutjesdijk, who leads the preparation for the master plan, said the Philippine government has recognized the need to integrate flood protection with local development after tropical storm Ondoy drowned Metro Manila in 2009.

 

“Ondoy was sort of an eye-opener. It changed the attitude of the government,” he said in a media interview.

 

In 2009, the back-to-back storms of Ondoy and Pepeng unleashed massive floods in Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon, affecting 9.3 million people and causing the deaths of close to a thousand, the WB said. Total damage and losses reached more than US$4 billion or 2.7 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.  Cleaning up Manila Bay and Laguna Lake

 

Stoutjesdijk said Manila's flood protection plan includes reforestation projects in the watershed areas outside the city, clearing up the catchment basins such as the Manila Bay and the Laguna Lake, and improving urban drainage and waterways, which are clogged with informal settlers and trash.

 

The master plan, which maps out the development of the city in the next 25 years, also addresses issues such as resettling communities near the Laguna Lake and building structural solutions to protect them from floods.

 

The master plan is currently under review and might be ready in a month or two, the WB official said. Stoutjesdijk said he is optimistic that the Aquino government would adopt the plan.

Flood management linked to poverty reduction  

World Bank Country Director for the Philippines Motoo Konishi said: “In the context of the Philippines, it is vital to link urban flood risk management with poverty reduction and climate change adaptation initiatives, and specific issues of urban planning and management, such as housing provision, land tenure, urban infrastructure delivery, basic service provision, and livelihood.”

 

The World Bank also issued a guidebook titled Cities and Flooding: A Guide to Integrated Urban Flood Risk Management for the 21st Century to help Asian Cities cope with floods.

 

According to the WB, urban flooding is a serious and growing development challenge for countries in East Asia including the Philippines. It cost plenty of damage in Bangkok and Pakistan in the recent years, it added. At least 85% of PHL GDP vulnerable to floods

 

The Philippines is vulnerable to massive floods as it is visited by 20 typhoons every year. This is aggravated by poor urban planning, clogged waterways and street drainages.

 

According to the WB, at least 85% of its GDP are in areas at risk of floods, hence the need to make communities resilient to it.

 

"Recent large-scale disasters such as the tsunami and earthquake in Japan and the floods in Thailand, Philippines, and Australia emphasize the need for a new approach to disaster risk management and resilience,” said lead author of the guidebook Abhas Jha, Lead Urban Specialist and Program Leader, Disaster Risk Management, World Bank East Asia and Pacific Region.

 

“We need to design systems that recognize the complex and uncertain nature of flood risk management and its impacts. Design should be comprehensive, flexible and iterative, being careful to avoid an over-reliance on any one given solution which may not be enough to counter the dynamic nature of risk,” he said. 

 

In the past years, flash floods have destroyed towns and resulted to huge losses in agriculture. Last December 2011, Tropical Storm Sendong hit the port cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan in northern Mindanao, killing about a thousand people.

 

Last year, typhoons Pedring and Quiel drowned central Luzon, the Philippines' grains center, and destroyed 1.1 million metric tons of unmilled rice. — TJD, GMA News