|
Monday, December 13, 2004
Water crisis looms in RP
By Henrylito D. Tacio
LOOMING, impending, worsening--these are the words used to describe the water crisis which the Philippines is now facing.
"Water shortage looms," headlined one national daily. "Metro Manila facing water shortage in May," said another. "Over half of Cebu towns water-starved," announced one study.
"On a macro-level, it appears there is plenty of water, but we are now experiencing problems and, in some instances, some areas (of the country) are suffering from lack of water," Elisea Gozun, former head of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), once explained.
"Water, water everywhere," wrote Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,' "but not a drop to drink."
"The world's thirst for water is likely to become one of the most pressing resources issues of the 21st century," surmises the Washington-based World Resources Institute in a recent report.
The United Nations Population Fund predicts that by year 2025, two-thirds of the world's population of 6.5 billion people will suffer from shortages of fresh water for drinking.
"Will Filipinos be among those who will have less clean water to drink?" asks Dr. Rafael D. Guerrero III, executive director of the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development.
"The image of a water-rich Philippines is a mirage," declares Gregory C. Ira, former head of the Water Equity in the Lifescape and Landscape Study of the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction in Silang, Cavite. "There is a water crisis in the Philippines, one of the wettest countries of Southeast Asia."
The water crisis is more transparent in Metro Manila, home to more than 10 million people. "For many residents in Metro Manila, coping with a 'water supply crisis' has been part of their daily woes for years," says the databank and research center of the Ibon Foundation Inc.
Water-critical cities
Metro Manila was one of the nine major cities listed as "water-critical areas" in a study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency in 1991. The other eight cities were Metro Cebu, Davao, Baguio, Angeles, Bacolod, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro and Zamboanga. Actually, the water problem is a shortage of freshwater that comes from rivers, lakes and the ground. Unlike water in the seas and oceans, the supply of freshwater is limited. Less than three percent of the world's water is fresh, and more than 75 percent of this is frozen--mainly at the North and South Poles.
According to the National Water Resources Board, the country's central agency for water management and regulation, the Philippines has a dependable supply of water resources with a total volume of 1,117 million cubic meters (mcm).
The biggest user of water is agriculture with 86 percent of the total used followed by industry with 8 percent and only 6 percent for domestic use. Filipinos consume 310 to 507 mcm of water everyday but not everyone has access to water. Most of the country's water is supplied by rainfall, which is unevenly distributed.
"Despite an average annual rainfall of 2.36 meters," says Dr. Guerrero, "the distribution of rain is not even throughout the country. The Southern Tagalog region has the most freshwater available while the Western Visayas region has the least."
Denuded watersheds
"We cannot talk of providing sustainable water to the people unless we protect the sources of the commodity, the watersheds," said Gozun during the Earth Day celebration in Puerto Princesa City last year.
In a report a couple of years ago, the DENR said that 90 percent of the 99 watershed areas in the country were "hydrologically critical" due to their degraded physical condition.
Massive destruction of the once productive forested watersheds by loggers-both legal and illegal--and uncontrolled land use from mining, overgrazing, agricultural expansion, and industrialization have contributed to water depletion.
"From a high of 15 million hectares decades ago, the country has only about 5.4 million hectares of forestlands left," Guzon said.
Deforestation has also resulted to enormous soil erosion, which exacerbates the destruction of watershed areas. At least two provinces--Cebu and Batangas--have lost more than 80 percent of their topsoil to erosion. In Luzon, the four major basins (Bicol, Magat, Pampanga, and Agno) are in critical condition due to acute soil erosion and sedimentation.
The rampant cutting of trees has also significantly reduced the volume of groundwater available for domestic purposes. Cebu, which has zero forest cover, is 99 percent dependent on groundwater.
As a result, more than half of the towns and cities in Cebu Province, excluding Metro Cebu, have no access to potable water, according to a study conducted in Central Visayas.
In Metro Manila, the water tables are being drawn at the rate of 6 to 12 meters a year causing saline water intrusion along the coastal areas.
River pollution has added to the country's water problem. The Philippine Urban Sewerage and Sanitation classifies 37 out of 418 rivers in the country as polluted while the rest were seriously polluted.
Eleven rivers were considered "biologically dead." Fifty-two percent of the country's water pollution load is attributable to domestic wastes, while industry accounts for 48 percent. Changing weather patterns worldwide also contribute to the crisis. One such thing is the El Niño phenomenon, which is associated with unusually warm water that occasionally forms across much of the tropical eastern and central Pacific. In weak to moderate El Niño events, rainfall tends to be somewhat less than normal.
"A great number of the population in Metro Manila and other urban centers like the cities of Cebu and Baguio perennially face water shortages particularly in the summer months and more so during the El Niño episode," says Dr. Guerrero.
(December 13, 2004 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
