PH won’t escape water crisis, USAID exec warns
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—Water shortage on a massive scale would be felt a decade from now and the Philippines will not be spared from the crisis, a director for the environment, energy and climate change office of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) warned.
Dani Newcomb, citing a projection made by the Food and Agriculture Organization, said that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population would be living in areas suffering from a severe lack of water caused by a number of factors.
“Water resources are under increasing pressure due to population growth, high urbanization, environmental degradation, weak governance, natural disasters and climate change,” Newcomb said during the launching of the nonrevenue water (NRW) reduction program that USAID initiated to help the Cagayan de Oro Water District (COWD) and its more than 87,000 consumers here.
As solutions to cushion the impact of climate change are being discussed by world leaders in various venues across the globe, water-saving measures are seen as one way to mitigate the impact of water shortage on communities, she added.
Cagayan de Oro is one of the areas USAID has been working with under the Cities Development Initiative, a component of the broader Partnership for Growth, to save on water. Other recipients include the cities of Iloilo, Puerto Princesa, Tagbilaran, Batangas and Zamboanga.
The project was designed to reduce NRW, or water that is lost as a result of leaks, wastage, pilferage through illegal connections and other means.
The COWD admits it is losing 80,000 cubic meters of water, or 53 percent of the 150,000 cubic meters it generates each day. The acceptable level of NRW should only be 20 to 30 percent.
The NRW is not unique to Cagayan de Oro as other regions in the Philippines face similar challenges, Newcomb said.
USAID, she said, is committed to not only supporting the country’s economic growth and development, but the delivery of water and sanitation services that can also affect public health, productivity and quality of life.
She said that because water supplies were threatened by typhoons, floods, droughts and sea level rises, climate resilience was a key factor in USAID’s work in other parts of the country.
“We work closely with water utilities and local governments to integrate climate resilience in water supply services and in local planning. With projected water shortages, we appreciate now more than ever the increasing importance of water-use efficiency as one of the potentially effective ways to address the adverse effects of climate change on water resources,” Newcomb added.
“With climate change projections that predict less overall future rainfall, the COWD decided it was time to increase its water supply through NRW reduction. By addressing this problem, the COWD can use the water saved to improve their services for everyone. They can even expand to serve other areas still lacking a water connection,” said a USAID statement.
COWD general manager Rachel Beja said she was hoping that the NRW program would be sustained in the coming years.
