Preparing for whats to come, adapting to whats already here

Highlights of the 5th REAP Conference Integrating Climate Change Adaptation, Disaster Risk Management and Watershed Management in Local Land Use and Development Planning: Practitioners and Technical Experts Discussion

ocal governments and communities are in the forefront of climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) and should therefore be sufciently equipped to face these challenging undertakings. However, CCA and DRR work require tremendous amounts of technical expertise, for which local governments need support and guidance from national agencies, academe, civil society and other expert groups. A critical success factor is also how well local government units (LGUs) can integrate CCA and DRR endeavors into their local development planning processes and programs. The fth annual conference of the Resource and Environmental Economics Foundation of the Philippines (REAP), held on March 2011, sought to contribute to answering this need by bringing together local planners as well as technical and academic individuals to discuss current developments, challenges, opportunities and knowledge on CCA and DRR integration in local planning, using the watershed as the planning unit.

Local mandate for CCA and DRR

Republic Act 9729, or the Climate Change Act of 2009, states that LGUs are the frontline agencies in the formulation, planning and implementation of climate change action plans in their respective areas, as guided by other national policies like the Local Government Code, Framework Strategy on Climate Change, and the National Climate Change Action Plan. Republic Act 10121, or the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010, on the other hand, recognizes the role of local governments in building the disaster resilience of communities and directs LGUs to create Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Ofces. Local development plans that LGUs regularly prepare are seen as the best tools for integrating CCA/DRR in local programs. The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), working with the support of international development agencies, is developing a manual to guide local governments on mainstreaming CCA/DRR in local land use planning. The manual will be used by the Housing and Land Comprehensive Land Use Plans (CLUP).
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Use and Regulatory Board to guide LGUs in updating their

Current challenges and opportunities

The country is in a situation where it is already experiencingand may even be said to be struggling fromthe impacts of climate change and disasters. While leaders need to adopt long-term perspectives in planning, they also need to answer needs that are already here. The conference discussed some of the main challenges, as well as opportunities, currently being faced in CCA and DRR work. Communication, capacity and access to information. Local governments need to access a considerable amount of information to enable them to plan for climate change and disasters properly. Some examples of these types of information are socioeconomic proles; vulnerability to extreme events (oods, geo-hazards, storms, coral bleaching etc.); historical patterns of past disasters/ climatic events; hydrology mapping/modeling; and impact of infrastructure, settlements and other economic activities. Some data, like socioeconomic proles and zoning maps, are already available or are being collected by LGUs as part of their current operations. However, a lot of other needed data are highly technical and require considerable resources to generate, which may seem overwhelming to many local governments. Participants also noted that there is still a great need to spread more awareness among LGUs and grassroots communities. While some communities may be more aware of the need for disaster preparedness than others (especially those that have previously experienced disasters themselves), the need for spreading awareness remained a commonly cited need, since awareness is the rst step in a process that leads to taking action. Forming linkages with technical experts in national government agencies, nongovernment organizations (NGOs), academe and other groups is essential in building awareness and capacities of LGUs and communities and putting them in a position to make informed plans and decisions. Having adequate information also facilitates long-term planning and prioritization of needs. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) provides training
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for local governments on the use of REDAS, or the Rapid Earthquake Damage Assessment System, a noncommercial, GIS-based software for computing hazards and preparing scenarios. Local governments may use this software to build a database of their critical and at-risk facilities and draw up impact scenarios based on known or expected hazards in their area. For geohazard maps, which may be needed for evaluating infrastructure projects, LGUs may request copies from the DENRs Mines and Geosciences Bureau. For coastal communities, the Integrated Coastal Enhancement: Coastal Research Evaluation and Adaptive Management (ICE CREAM) project works with its LGU partners in providing them with research information and decision support tools (e.g., GIS overlays, simulations, vulnerability assessment). Results of these analyses feed into recommendations for adaptive management measures such as coastal
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zoning guidelines, marine protected area networks, and sheries management. National agencies like PHIVOLCS and projects like ICE CREAM may serve as resources for technical information as well as eld implementation lessons. Conference participants suggested that national agencies compile and disseminate knowledge products from projects or initiatives from different parts of the country. LGUs can also be more resourceful in generating data; for example, municipalities belonging to the same watershed may consider working together and pooling their resources so they can afford to tap the needed technical expertise to do the technical studies for them. Policy/Governance/Planning. Participants pointed out that there is no specic or permanent LGU ofce in charge of developing and implementing local climate change plans. Some LGUs also do not prioritize climate change due to lack of

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capability or awareness. For disaster management, while the law requires the creation of local DRR ofces, some LGUs are hard put to ll those positions because of personnel or budget constraints and may likely just designate an existing staff/ofce to take on the additional tasks. A serious concern that was also pointed out is the lack of initiative in integrating the watershed approach to local planning. In fact, there is no strong legal framework for watershed management. While policies such as the National Integrated Protected Areas Act, Executive Order 533 (on integrated coastal management), and the Forestry Reform Code cover watersheds to a certain extent, there is still no entity or governing body which has the mandate or accountability to plan for watershed management. This is an important policy gap, especially for watersheds that cover several provinces or municipalities (and the LGUs of these provinces and municipalities develop their individual CLUPs). For watersheds that are not proclaimed as protected areas, there is no mandate for local governments to develop a watershed plan. The Clean Water Act may be the closest policy that may be used as mandate for watershed management. Another constraint is the usual sectoralas opposed to integratedapproach to planning used by national and local governments, which may pose problems in addressing cross-cutting needs like CCA, DRR, and watershed management. Institutional mechanisms and guidelines for integration should be provided to guide LGUs.
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Funding. LGUs can access their development fund and part of their calamity funds for CCA and DRR needs, but these may likely be insufcient. However, they can be creative and resourceful in exploring other ways of raising funds to nance projects. Some possible ways cited include seeking donor funding, setting up payments for ecosystem services arrangements, operating business enterprises, issuing noncompliance certicates to settlers of hazardprone areas and imposing nes to those that refuse to move out after a given period, and developing tourism areas. Implementation should also be efcient; for example, one of the LGU presenters in the conference shared their practice of implementing projects directly instead of contracting them out to save costs, and implementing by phase to spread out the need for huge outlays.

Lessons and insights for upland/agricultural, urban, and coastal landscapes

The conferences workshop sessions divided participants according to three groups: upland/ agricultural, urban, and coastal landscapes. The workshop groups discussed issues, gaps, research and training needs, and other concerns specic to their respective landscapes. While there are many common issues and needs across the groups, some of which have already been discussed in the previous section, below are some of the landscape-specic concerns discussed during the workshops as well as in the presentations.

Upland/Agricultural
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Using the watershed approach and generating hydrological studies are useful in guiding longterm planning decisions and promoting integrated management. For the Laguna Lake Basin, rainfall and hydrologic studies generate information that help planners avoid or manage heavy ooding incidents, leading to recommendations on matters such as building the appropriate ood control works and other infrastructure or addressing settlements/developments along oodplains. Participants also expressed interest in the watershed protection management (upstream) of Laguna Lake as well as other important watersheds that provide water to low-lying areas. In addressing this concern, Laguna Lake Development Authority works with local governments and civil society organizations in implementing re-greening programs. Setting up payments for ecosystem services arrangements is one possible way of addressing watershed protection needs. However, it was also noted that institutional mechanisms for payments for environmental services are not yet in place.

Coastal Landscape Building seawalls is the usual, obvious solution of LGUs to address coastal protection. However, it is
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often a costly and insufcient way of addressing the problem. As part of adaptation and risk reduction, LGU investments should also cover soft infrastructure such as enhancing natural protection systems through seagrass restoration or coral reef protection.

Climate change communication need to be improved so it can be understood by stakeholders from decision-makers down to sherfolks. Forging multi-stakeholder partnerships is important towards achieving this end. It is also important to discuss climate change in terms of how it will directly affect the community and its immediate surroundings, and decision-making tools such as GIS overlays and simulation scenarios may be helpful in illustrating impacts.

Urban Landscape Past experiences have shown that Metro Manila and other urban centers are ill-prepared, inadequatelyWWF/Lory Tan

equipped, and lack the planning needed to handle strong typhoon and ooding events. As far as earthquakes are concerned, the Metro Manila Earthquake Impact Reduction Study, which prepared scenarios for a magnitude 7.2 earthquake stemming from the Marikina West Valley Fault, showed considerable disaster planning needs such as evacuation centers that comply with international standards and emergency facilities such as clinic, food and water stations, helicopter pads and temporary shelter for casualties. However, there are not even enough open spaces to be designated as evacuation areas. Decades of poor urban planning are now wreaking havoc on a growing metropolis that has many inappropriate structures and colonies of informal settlers too close to high-risk waterways. Cities need to adopt radical changes to their planning and management approach, exploring options like adoptive architecture, more open spaces (instead of sprawl development), green technologies, relocation of settlements, strict land use zoning according to hazard mapping, and a host of other interventions.

A Sense of Vision, Urgency

Clearly, the work on climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and watershed management still face a lot of challenges, although steps are being taken towards the right direction, such as the emerging emphasis on integration, the recognition of the need for technical/research data to guide plans and decisions, and efforts to establish linkages among levels of government (from national down to local) as well as among various concerned sectors (NGOs, private groups, academe, international agencies). It is also important to keep in mind that CCA and DRR happen at the household, community and government levels, and what happens at each level relates to the other levels. Stronger, proactive households make for more resilient communities, and these are in turn inuenced by and reinforced by effective governance. CCA and DRR work inherently needs to have a long-term perspective, with concerned ofcials fully cognizant of the fact that their actions have implications that go beyond their lifetime as planners and decision-makers. At the same time, there is also urgency involved because of the disasters and extreme events that the country is already experiencing. It is hoped that this sense of vision and urgency will propel all stakeholdersfrom households to communities to top-level decision-makersto work together to take on the challenge of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction.

The 5th Annual REAP Conference was organized by the Resource and Environmental Economics Foundation of the Philippines, WWF-Philippines, and the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia through the support of the Resources, Environment, and Economics Center for Studies, Landbank of the Philippines and the Coca-Cola Foundation.

REECS