By BNC staff
The Philippines should adopt a “ridge-to-reef” approach to worsening floods by managing water from mountains and watersheds through lowlands and urban areas all the way to the coast, according to architect and urban planner Jun Palafox.
Palafox said the country should move away from treating flooding merely as a drainage or flood control problem and instead manage water across the entire landscape, with measures such as rainwater harvesting, small dams and impoundments, river dredging, Laguna Lake management, spillways and coastal floodgates.
“It should not [be] just flood control. Water resources management, you start from the mountains. Then you manage the water, like rainwater harvesting, and so on,” Palafox said in an interview on Bilyonaryo News Channel’s “The Spokes,” program on Wednesday.
He said the ultimate goal was to stop responding to flooding only after water had reached vulnerable communities and instead manage water systems from the watershed to the coastline.
“From the top of the mountain, the highlands, the midlands, the lowlands, and the coastline, the reef,” Palafox said, explaining that under the approach, water would be treated not only as a hazard during heavy rains, but also as a resource that could be captured, stored and reused during the dry season.
The multi-awarded architect cited Tokyo as an example of how floodwaters could be captured upstream to prevent excessive volumes from reaching densely populated, low-lying areas.
“In metropolitan Tokyo, going down there, harvest the water with smaller dams. And during rainy season, we could harvest the water. Dry season, we could use that water,” he said.
Palafox said the same principle could be applied in the Philippines through a network of smaller water storage facilities in communities, allowing excess rainwater to be captured during storms and later released or used for irrigation.
“Even from the mountains, you start collecting the water. And during dry season, either you can release the water or they could be used for irrigation,” he noted.
He also cited the Banaue Rice Terraces as an example of how terrain and gravity have long been used in the Philippines to manage water without relying heavily on pumping systems.
“They are so smart. No pumping stations. They just use gravity,” Palafox said.
At the barangay level, Palafox proposed using existing open spaces and community facilities, including basketball courts, for small-scale rainwater harvesting and water impoundment.
“Every barangay should have rainwater harvesting,” he said, adding that such facilities could also be integrated with evacuation centers.
Palafox also called for better management of Laguna Lake as part of a broader flood mitigation system for Metro Manila, including dredging and the development of a spillway that would allow excess water to flow toward Manila Bay.
“Laguna Lake is like a toilet without a flush,” he said, adding that the system should also include floodgates to prevent high tides from pushing water back into the metropolis, citing Amsterdam as an example.