Greetings from Manila
We have
arrived in the Philippines! We are in en route to Tacloban, and we are finally
beginning our blog, as promised. We are here for nine days to meet with
representatives of Kusog Tacloban (our client), local officials in Leyte Province,
and residents in different neighborhoods. We will share draft materials for the
project and gather feedback, and collect additional information and data as
needed for the production of the environmental site assessment guide for
neighborhoods in Leyte. The timing, coming about two-thirds of the way through
our project, is good in that we are bursting now with questions to ask, an
understanding of the situation to validate, and certainly some assumptions to
challenge by visiting in person. We plan to share our day-by-day travels and
experiences here on the blog, as well as the progress of the project, so we
should first begin with a background of the design problems and planning
questions that this project addresses and what we have done so far.
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A photo of midtown Tacloban in the days after the
storm. The city of 220,000 and coastal communities to
the south were devastated by the catastrophic winds and
|
In November
2013, the strongest tropical storm on record ever to make landfall struck the
Philippines, affecting millions. Typhoon Yolanda killed over 6,200 people, left
an additional 1,800 missing, and destroyed over 500,000 homes. Communities
along the east side of Leyte Island arguably bore the greatest brunt of the
storm. In Tacloban City, Leyte’s provincial capital and regional hub, and in
towns to the south, storm surges of over five meters swept ashore, over a
kilometer inland in some places. The storm surge claimed the lives of many who
stayed to watch over their property, and, tragically, many who evacuated to
centers located within the inundation zone. Eight months after the storm,
relief efforts remain underway, but recovery and long-term rehabilitation of
the region are in the works. There is an omnipresent mantra of “Building Back
Better” among those involved in these efforts. That is, the aftermath of the
storm, in spite of its terrible consequences, affords an opportunity to design
and plan for greater resilience—both in the physical infrastructure and
construction of communities, and in the capacity of local governments and
residents to tackle this rebuilding through more environmentally informed
development.
The Philippines and Disaster Risk
The
Philippines on whole is no stranger to disaster. In 2012, the U.N. ranked the
archipelago nation the third most disaster-prone country in the world; on
average, ten-thousand people die each year as a result of natural disasters
(out of a national population nearing 100 million). The national government has
made great strides in recent years to strengthen disaster mitigation through
shifting emphasis from reactive response to a more proactive regulatory
framework striving to reduce disaster risk through risk assessment, early
warning systems, and integration of risk management into land use planning. In
spite of these changes, the quality of available data and assessments from
national authorities and the flow of that information to local governments (which
conduct much of the planning and disaster risk management) is wanting. Yolanda
evidenced this problem, when the lack of communication and coordination between
various levels of governance plagued the preparations for the storm. Moreover,
basic information on the threat and severity of the storm surge appeared to not
reach local residents. While some 800,000 residents did successfully evacuate,
the loss of life from the storm is staggering when compared to places in the
Philippines where strong coordination of risk management, including public
education and involvement in planning processes, has reduced casualties from disaster
events in recent years.
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| Kusog Tacloban has provided relief services to communities, including roof-tarping. Photo: Kusog Tacloban |
The Genesis and
Goals of this Project
Goals of this Project
The client
for the project that we are working on is Kusog Tacloban, a non-profit that was
established to provide relief aid to Tacloban and neighboring communities after
Yolanda. Kusog drew up an audit strategy to make sure that aid that they were
distributing was making it to those communities where it was needed most.
Looking towards the recovery phase of the aftermath, the organization
identified a need for more ecologically sound assessment to be used in the
planning process and development post-Yolanda. Lacking this expertise among
their founders and volunteers, and having a connection to the Conway School,
they asked our program to work on a project developing a strategy for this
aspect of recovery. The focus of the project is essentially to connect
communities with information on hazards risk and environmental conditions,
where there is a disconnect between sources of available information and local
communities, so that those involved in planning at the local level can make
more informed land use decisions. To that end, the goals are five-fold and
essentially describe a process that is the framework for this entire project.
- Determine key environmental factors, by mapping and illustrating hazards.
- Devise an audit strategy for environmental site assessments, by drafting questionnaires, score cards for land use suitability, decision trees, and/or other tools.
- Create a community guide that incorporates the audit strategy, by integrating educational materials and hazard risk maps with questionnaires.
- Test and refine the guide using community feedback and ground truthing, by meeting with local officials and residents, and sharing draft materials during the trip to Leyte.
- Strive for a replicable strategy and guide that can be used in communities across Leyte Province, by incorporating feedback from multiple communities and keeping the guide simple, non-technical, and overall accessible for non-experts.
The
preference is for the process and guide to be used at the barangay/neighborhood
level, where residents may have the most involvement in decision-making about
planning.
Work Accomplished Thus Far
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| We had the opportunity to share our work with our Conway colleagues during weekly presentations on Wednesdays. Photo: Gallagher Hannan |
We are two
months into a three-month-long project. From the very beginning, the intent was
to develop a process through which the materials that we generated would be
tested, refined, and used by local communities. It became evident, perhaps a
month in, that given the constraints of the available information, particularly
on hazard risk and accurate maps, as well as the constraints on coordinating
work with local communities on our school project timeframe, the work of our
project is primarily about devising a process, and, during and after our trip
to Leyte Province, refining our conceptualization of that process and the
usefulness of the draft materials that we have produced. That is, for now, the
process is ultimately more important than completion of the actual product. We
have brought draft materials to share with community members. These include
simplified/adapted existing maps (incorporating some limited, additional data
that we have gathered into the maps), some educational reference materials for
the guide (e.g. reference sheet on storm surge), and drafted some
questionnaires for site assessments, including those to be used for situating
an evacuation center.
The usefulness
of the product is somewhat predicated on the accuracy and precision of the
data—which is limited at present. Only regional scale hazard susceptibility
mapping has been completed, and storm surge modeling on the scale of that which
occurred during Yolanda is not yet publicly available. As of our arrival,
therefore, we have no more than what local government units may have access to.
Our hope is that the process and templates for the guide that we develop during
our Conway project will be adaptable to forthcoming municipal-scale hazard mapping
that national authorities are currently working on and risk assessments maps
that international agencies are working on.
Thoughts on the Project
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| An example of a draft reference sheet that we generated for the guide, intended to be keyed into hazard maps and site condition questionnaires. These and other materials will need to be translated into Waray-Waray, the predominant language in northeast Leyte Province. |
We had our
spring formal presentations last Friday, and, as one of our critics pointed
out, the prospects for the educational component of this project seem greater
than any hazard risk or other maps that we might produce, at least at this
point in time. There is a need for educational materials for community members
so that they may better plan for their living situations, livelihoods, and
disaster preparations around knowledge of the risks—especially given the effect
of human activity in the region on important ecosystem services that play a
role in disaster mitigation. (For example, mangroves, which have been
deforested in many places, and coral reefs, which are destroyed through illegal
fishing practices are two systems that play a role in breaking wave energy and
buffering coastlines from the full brunt of tropical storms.)
Moreover,
community involvement in this process and production of a guide—the aim of
Kusog Tacloban—should serve to strengthen planning, by incorporating local
knowledge of communities’ history of disasters; needs as far as livelihoods and
services; and attitudes/perceptions of hazard risk and the willingness to adapt
to/live in some harmonious acceptance of hazard risks. On that last note, we
are particularly interested in the feedback of local government leaders and
community members in coastal communities that have been the focus of national
government efforts to prohibit redevelopment along the coastline (dictating,
thus far, a 40 meter setback). (Also, group of leading scientists has called
for a 100 meter coastal greenbelt to assist in ecological restoration of
mangroves and other natural buffers). Who will make such decisions about
relocation? Are some community members, such as fisherfolk interested in
leaving seaside neighborhoods? Do they have a solid understanding of the
relative risks between relocation options and staying put? Can the guide that
our team produces strike a balance between optimizing disaster risk mitigation
by encouraging redevelopment and/or relocation in areas of least risks (as we
have focused on so far) and the very real needs/desires of and constraints on
residents to remain where they are?
We are here
to seek those answers and all of the available information that we can. We will
be meeting with staff at the Environment and Rural Development Program (EnRD),
a joint venture between the Philippine and German governments. (The
participating German agency is the German Corporation for International
Cooperation [GIZ]). Olaf Neussner, Chief of the EnRD’s Disaster Risk Management
program at the will meet with us to discuss their work and our project. GIZ has
a twenty-plus year presence in Leyte Province, so we know that it can serve as
a tremendous resource for this work. Additionally, EnDR is working with municipalities
to revamp their comprehensive land use plans (CLUPs) and zoning bylaws to take
an integrated ecosystems management approach, looking at all ecosystem services
from the ridge down to the reef, and the role that these systems play in
disaster risk mitigation. This includes public education and a strong emphasis
on participatory planning. Kusog Tacloban and their enthusiastic corps of
volunteers have prepared an itinerary that includes meetings with target
communities. We will meet the mayors, vice mayors, and departmental heads of
four municipalities affected by Yolanda: Barugo, Javier, Palo, and Tanauan. We
will meet with focus groups in some neighborhoods, including the barangay of
Candahug in Palo, which was hard hit by the storm, and where Kusog has done a
lot of relief work.
Thank You
Thank you
again for your generosity in helping to send us to Leyte and for supporting
this project. We appreciate this opportunity tremendously and we are hopeful
that our work for Kusog Tacloban will be a step in the direction of progress
for participatory community planning and disaster risk mitigation in Leyte
Province.
Till the
next post…
Trevor
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