By BNC staff
Architect and urban planner Jun Palafox on Wednesday warned that the Philippines’ drainage and flood control systems were about 75 percent undersized as extreme weather events became more frequent and intense.
Speaking on Bilyonaryo News Channel’s “The Spokes” program, Palafox said much of the country’s flood control infrastructure was designed for weather conditions that no longer reflected the severity and frequency of storms hitting the Philippines.
“Even our drainage system, flood control system, 75 percent undersized because the 100-year typhoon is now happening every other year,” said Palafox when asked how much more infrastructure was needed to address the massive flooding in the country.
Palafox said the problem was being compounded by increasingly frequent extreme weather events, with storms once considered rare now occurring much more often.
He said the country needed to rethink how it designed and sized drainage and flood control infrastructure instead of relying on standards based largely on historical weather patterns.
Palafox added that addressing flooding should go beyond simply expanding drainage systems, stressing the need for an integrated approach that manages water from mountains and watersheds through lowlands and urban areas toward the coast.
“Water resources management, you start from the mountains. Then you manage the water, like rainwater harvesting, and so on,” he said.
He proposed measures, such as river dredging, rainwater harvesting, small dams and impoundments, as well as systems that could capture excess water during the rainy season and make it available during dry periods.
“During rainy season, we could harvest the water. Dry season, we could use that water,” Palafox said.