Change our water mindset
All forms of water, even floodwaters, should be treated as assets whose full benefits should be unlocked for a variety of purposes to serve national development, according to an environment official.
Instead of wasting money on flood control, the better alternative would be to build structures to impound the water.
Carlos Primo David, undersecretary for integrated environmental science at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), asserted the country is rich in water resources and this should be utilized fully to support economic growth and water security and not be considered an impediment to economic growth.
“Remember it is the same water, even floodwaters, that we will use for our drinking water, irrigation, ecotourism, and even power generation. All the rain that we receive is actually a resource, a valuable one that we can harness for development,” said David at a recent climate change conference at UP Diliman.
He pushed for the harmonization and coordination of flood control and water management by different government agencies. He noted that the current practice in flood control is to “flush out all that water as fast as possible to the ocean” by building river dikes.
David said this practice is not only a waste of water resources but a waste of money, pointing out that dike construction as part of flood control costs about “P350 billion a year.”
He said the excess water should not be pushed out to the ocean as it will be needed in the dry season. The better strategy is to impound it.
Valentino Bagatsing, chairperson and CEO of Investment and Capital Corporation of the Philippines and a recent guest on Daily Tribune’s Straight Talk, said opportunities from water are abundant but they flow in the wrong places.
We need to change our mindset and start seeing water as a resource, he said, adding that Filipinos often regard water as a liability because it brings floods, traffic and destruction, among other things.
David explained “the key to flood control is not putting walls in our rivers. The key is to control [the water] upstream, impound it and utilize it for beneficial purposes.”
He said the Philippines has about 800 dams, most of which are small structures, for impounding water. This pales in comparison to Japan which has some 19,000 dams.
“The Japanese know we have to control the water, and for that water to be controlled we need to protect the watershed… and the Japanese use the water in these dams for beneficial uses,” he said.
David proposed that “we develop these infrastructures [dams] to replace dikes.” Dikes are expensive to build, estimating they cost about P260,000 per linear meter.
This, he added, means that every dike project is approximately P50 billion to P90 billion.
In comparison, low-height dams cost about P750 million each to build, and they not only help in flood control efforts, they also provide drinking water and irrigation supply, and are now increasingly used in ecotourism, for activities such as boating and swimming.
This is a more effective use of that money, he said.