Hiko Thesis Report

HAZARD OR DISASTER REDEFINING VULNERABILITY AND MANAGING CLIMATE CHANGE RISK IN METRO MANILA SUN

YAN, 10 / 06 / 2016 , MLA, THE UNIVERSITY OF HONGKONG

Abstract: The definition of disaster and the terminology related with disaster is the main thread of the thesis process. The thesis is trying to look into the same question from different perspectives.

Hazards are natural, but disasters are not. Disasters are hazards, but is then defined by the vulnerability of society. Vulnerability is beyond a geographical problem, instead, it lies in more complicated social, political, economic networks. Some scholars define disaster as a failure to visualize its terrain.

The Philippines is a typical example of constructed vulnerability. Therefore, I tried to understand water through the lens of different agents (including the geologist, engineer, decision maker and local community), in order to find out how Pilipino construct their vulnerability over time, what is the conflict and connections between or among different agents, that might reveal design possibilities.

Disaster should be understood in the context of climate change. How our infrastructure can be renewed to meet the challenge of changing climate? After densify and increasing the capacity of water storage system, what is the new possibilities?

Keywords: hazard, disaster, construct vulnerability, Metro Manila, water terrain, flood, climate change

NARRATIVE Hazards are natural, but disasters are not. Disasters are hazards, but is then defined by the vulnerability of society. Geographically, the Philippines is prone to natural hazards. Each year, this nation will be hit by an average of 13 typhoons. Metro manila locates on the lowland where large amount of water from upstream high land will rush into the urban area. Metro Manila is among the most vulnerable areas to natural hazards, especially flooding, due to its large population and extreme poverty.

When faced with hazards, different people come up with different coping mechanisms. Some work, some do not. And even then, some actions will increase the vulnerability of other communities.

If one imagines that vulnerability is a constructed concept by which climate, geography, politics, culture, and economics play an important role, it is important to understand how various actors work within these constructs.

The Philippines is a typical example of constructed vulnerability. Some scholars define disaster as a failure to visualize its terrain. Therefore, I tried to understand water through the lens of different agents (including the geologist, engineer, decision maker and local community), in order to find out how Pilipino construct their vulnerability over time, what is the conflict and connections between or among different agents, that might reveal design possibilities.

After identifying the sources of flood water, engineers blame the inadequate flow capacity of Pasig-Marikina River as the root of flood. They accurately calculate the discharge of water in each river course and raise the parapet and rehabilitate the revetment, finally constructing the Manggahan Floodway.

The Manggahan Floodway is built in 1986 to reduce the flooding along the Pasig River by diverting the peak water flows of the Marikina River to the Laguna de Bay. While the floodway was completed, the project did not solve flooding; it merely transferred floodwaters from the river to the lake, affecting communities surrounding Laguna de Bay which was originally not flooded. The floodway did not solve the problem but instead, create a new land for flooding. Vulerability here, is totally constructed.

The government’s approach can be understood in 2 and 3 dimensions.

Water is understood through the natural division of the river basin. However, how we manage it is based on the administrative boundary. River - usually natural boundary of a certain area, also, overlapped with the administrative boundary of Metro Manila. The complete river basin is divided into fragmented parts.

Complicated government administrative structures make it even worse, causing the implementation of projects to be even harder and resulting in the poor management.

Different local communities have different views of working with water.

Gated communities want to get rid of water as soon as possible, so they build wall around the community, so they rely on drainage system to release water collected from the cmmunity.

The mid class local community think disaster is daily occurrence, and their attitude towards disaster is the normalization of threat. When disaster happens, they move their daily stuff upstairs, and they rely on the street to drain water.

Informal settlement usually lives in the most vulnerable. Their housing structure has durable and temporary structure to rebuild their house after being flooded.

All agents contribute to construct vulnerability of Metro Manila.They have their own way of understanding and coping with water, they all work on their own but it does not work. They even constrain each other.

Since they can’t solve the problem on their own, how about create room for negotiation and new partnerships? Each agent takes different responsibilities?

Then I begin to understand water in a new way – a process of overflow. “…Rain does not flow; it overflows after being held until it exceeds the capacity of that particular holding. It then held again in a more extended realm…” Overflows move not just in complex ways across the earth, also in complex times.

In which hydrological moments are these communities located? This understanding helps us to identify and clarify the responsibility of different agents and find a new way to manage the water terrain.

Disaster should be understood in the context of climate change. How our infrastructure can be renewed to meet the challenge of changing climate? After densify and increasing the capacity of water storage system, what is the new possibilities?

>> TERMINOLOGY [re-defining] looking into the same question from different perspectives

[HAZARD] + ?; [DISASTER] BEYOND GEOGRAPHY HAZARD A hazard is a situation that poses a level of threat to life, health, property, or environment.

Natural hazard can be divided into 2 types: rapid onset (includ¬ing flood, earthquake, and coastal storm) and slow onset (including land degradation, drought and sea-level rise).

DISASTER “A disaster is a sudden, calamitous event that seriously disrupts the functioning of a community or society and causes human, material, and economic or environmental losses that exceed the community’s or society’s ability to cope using its own resources. Though often caused by nature, disasters can have human origins.” (http://www.ifrc.org/en/what-we-do/disaster-management/about-disasters/ what-is-a-disaster/I)

[HAZARD] + ?; [DISASTER]

The great incidence of disasters is not only due to a rising number of purely natural physical phenomena, also it is related with the wider historical and social dimensions of hazard. When we look at the Disaster prevention, therefore, is seen as largely as a matter of improving scientific prediction, engineering preparedness and the administrative management of hazard, but, since disaster is not only depending upon geographies, our solution to disasters, no matter rapid onset or slow onset, should be understood based on both physical and social dimensions.

The definition of hazard and disaster can be understood through this equation:

[ VULNERABILITY+ HAZARD ] / CAPACITY = DISASTER

[VULNERABILITY] CONSTRUCTING VULNERABILITY Since disaster can be understood through both geology and sociology, and we cannot change the hazard brought by climate change. We cannot avoid the hazard but we can change disaster by increasing people’s vulnerability to disasters.

So who is the most vulnerable? Despite the ecosystem and service upon which human rely (drinkable water, growing food, fisheries), the vulnerable people also depend heavily on natural capital, have least financial resources and live in already degraded and variable environments. All these factors are the result of the his¬torical and social roots of a certain area. “vulnerability is constructed through the lack of mutuality between environment and human activity over time.” (Constructing Vulnerability: The Historical, Natural and Social Generation of Flooding in Metropolitan Manila) When faced with hazards, different people come up with different coping mechanisms. Some work, some do not. And even then, some actions will increase the vulnerability of other social groups. If one imagines that vulnerability is a constructed concept by which climate, geography, politics, culture, and economics play an important role, it is important to understand how various actors work within these constructs. Vulnerability is constructed. And it lies in a variety of relational changes (climate, topo, policy, culture).

[water]

“Water is everywhere before it is somewhere...”

“Disaster as a failure to visualize a terrain.” Then I begin to understand water in a new way – a process of overflow. “…Rain does not flow; it overflows after being held until it exceeds the capacity of that particular holding. It then held again in a more extended realm…” Overflows move not just in complex ways across the earth, also in complex times.

Water in history Attitude toward water changed over time in the 19th century The Pilipino think the water system of Metro Manila consists of three parts: Laguna de Bay, Pasig – Marikina River system and the esteros (the tributaries).

During the past hundreds of years, Metro Manila underwent great degradation of its aqua environment in the context of rapid urban agglomeration which includes population growth, establish of social service and the spacial expansion of the urbanized area especially during the nineteenth century when it is colonialized, while the colonial administration fail to respond efficiently to the degradation of water.

The history of the degradation of water can be traced back from the early nineteenth century when the water quality is quite good and the river system was seen as waterfront that the Spanish merchant elite and the official or luxurious houses were located along the Pasig river and its esteros. During that period of time, the river was used as place for pastime activities like swimming. During mid nineteenth century, the cottages along the Pasig River disappeared because of the rapid degradation of the river system, so the original residents who owned a luxurious house moved to San Miguel and Pandacan, then Santa Ana, San Pedro Macati, San Juan del Mont or Mariquina, and other upstream places for better water quality.

The meaning of water in Metro Manila had been transformed from recreational use to a pathogenic environment since the first half of 19th century when the center area of Metro Manila had huge amount of stagnant water which cannot react to the tidal change so that it cannot clean regularly and became worse and worse to make the swamps became an extremely pathogenic environment. When the Spanish authorities realized the problem, their solution was focusing on the tributaries, instead of looking at the whole water system, they made the esteros of the river system to be used as dumps and stagnant sewers and even built ditched around the fortified town (the Intramuros) which made the situation even worse because such kind of intervention prevented water from the natural purification process.

Thanks to the special geology and topography in a regional scale, the water in Metro Manila was quite muddy and the urbanized area was too flat compared with the highland upstream. As a result, when the muddy water rushed into the urban lowland with sediment, the suspended matter and mud bank became less and less covered by water.

Such situation deteriorated when the esteros were gradually filled up because of land expansion, and most of the esteros became cesspools.

Water supply had become a problem that most people had to buy water from carriers after they realized the idea of collecting rain water was not effective because it depends on the season, the volume collected was quite limited and of bad quality. The price of water bought from carriers might vary a lot depending on the water source and the season. What kind of drinking water you can get depended on your social status which means the richer can get the best water from the right bank tributaries of Pasig River or the spring of San Juan River. While the majority of people, not only the poorest people who cannot afford water from carriers, still relied on the river as water source. Water became a political issue when the scarcity caused the conflict of social order.

The population growth in the 19th accelerated the problem. These zones liable to flooding and marshy, were built during that period of time which rendered the entire urban area more sensitive to floods because the extension of the water-proof surface of the urbanized area.

Esteros are the special ecology of Metro Manila. However, many of the esteros disappeared during the 19th century. In terms of natural causes, the courses of the esteros, even without human adjustment is so tortuous that they are very narrow, about 10 meters in width and shallow. The tide has a very perceptible and beneficial influence in these arms since it allows a natural cleaning of the bottom. Also because of the muddy ecology of the esteros, the upper part of the Pasig was affected during 19th by natural phenomena which resulted in the ecological consequent in the downstream that the channels connected to the Laguna de Bay silt up from the beginning of the century and the depth of the Napindan channel is only around one meters especially during wet season from March to June.

The anthropic causes of the disappearing of the esteros accelerated the process of degradation of the aqua environment. The rapid filling in of the esteros for land expansion during the second half of the 19th century, the plantation for productive agriculture, such as the sugar cane, deeply modified the natural drainage system of the plain, and the deforestation entailed a greater increase in the alluvial load of the waterways. Besides, the floating population, which we called informal settlements, the dumping problem made the situation even worse.

>> LENS OF DIFFERENT AGENTS [VISUALIZATION OF WATER] Some scholars define disaster as a failure to visualize its terrain.

How Pilipino construct their vulnerability over time?

[GEOGRAPHY] First, I try to understand water in a geological way because flood is a natural hazard before it becomes disaster.

Hazard can be understood as a natural phenomenon, but disasters are not. Geographically, the Philippines is prone to natural hazards, especially flooding. The hurricane path shows that every year, this nation will be hit for several times. Metro Manila is among the most vulnerable area, especially for floods. Each year, this nation will be hit by an average of 13 typhoons. Metro Manila is among the most vulnerable areas to natural hazards in the Philippines, also because of the large amount of water rush into the urban lowland from the upstream highland area.

Basically, flood is hazard. Look at the timeline, shows the frequency of flood, the economic loss, and the people affected by flooding. Hazard becomes disasters, when it causes loss and even death. Disaster then is beyond geographical understanding, and instead, defined by the vulnerability of a society.

Topographically, Metro Manila locates on an extremely vulnerable area to flood because large amount of water from the north of the city will flow to this lowland, which run across different land use and soil types before it enters the urbanized area. The section shows the change in elevation along the river which shows that in this river basin, the northern area in a reginal scale is a varied terrain while Metro Manila is quite flat. And the detailed sections show the change in topography and also, the impact of human intervention which made the flood situation even worse, for example, the land was cleaned for further development, and the impact of deforestation on the ground and soil. When it comes to the urbanized area, the slope is gentler, especially when the water in manila is so muddy, that naturally, the ecology of the esteros will make the area flooded even without the influence of urbanization or deforestation. Moreover, deforestation, in both urban and rural areas, increases the amount of water coming into Manila and accelerate the speed of water flow.

Besides, the urbanization process changes the soil type along the stream also weaken the ability of the ground to soak water.

How we understand water in terms of geography is based on the visualization of the terrain through topography, flow accumulation, soil type and land use change mapping in a reginal scale and visualize the impact of all these factors through sectional diagram.

[ENGINEER] These diagrams show how engineer works increase the vulnerability. The Pilipino use pumping to extract water from the underground. Groundwater level changes, and the ground keeps sinking because of the overtaking of groundwater by pump stations. Besides, the continually reclamation of the coast (constrain the release of water) makes the whole costal line vulnerable to flood.

Engineers think we can take water whenever we want, we can expand our territory, there will always be a technical solution.

We have the complete control over water.

Also, this understanding influence their way of dealing with flood. After identifying the sources of flood water, (the water from the upper land, from the Manila Bay and the lake of Laguna de Bay), the engineers blames the inadequate flow capacity of Pasig-Marikina River as the root of flood. Pasig-Marikina River system, with 621 km2 area of catchment, runs through the center of Metro Manila and flows out to the Manila Bay. They accurately calculate the discharge of water in each river course and raise parapet and rehabilitate the revetment.

Most of the projects including drainage system improvement and flood control infrastructure were conducted by department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). The diagram shows the Pasig -Marikina river project which is a typical flood control project in Metro Manila to control the discharge of each river course by accurately calculate the discharge then design different types of river sections according to calculation.

The Manggahan Floodway is built in 1986 to reduce the flooding along the Pasig River by diverting the peak water flows of the Marikina River to the Laguna de Bay. While the floodway was completed, the project did not solve flooding; it merely transferred floodwaters from the river to the lake, affecting communities surrounding Laguna de Bay which is originally not flooded. The floodway did not solve the problem but instead, create a new land for flooding. Vulnerability here, is totally constructed.

They fail to understand water is everywhere before it is somewhere, rigidly think water is and should be within the boundary or line we draw on the map. If water over flow a river, and flood happened along the river, so the solution must be the river itself. They fail to realize, water flows in a more complex hydro-cycle which is far beyond the lines. The engineer way of visualizing flood problem is extracting the river system, based on the understanding that the problem and solution both lies within the water boundaries, and develop typologies to control water.

[Government] Usually cooperate with engineers, the government apply a scientific way of thinking to avoid loss. Like the engineers, how government draw water decides the morphology of the solution towards water. Based on the elevation model, the government predicts the flood-prone area in each river basin.

The government launched and proposed all kinds of projects to defend against flood in cooperation with foreign funds or NGOs. This diagram shows the constructed projects and the proposed (which is drawn in dash line), and the line weight shows the capital input of each project.

These strategies mainly focus on building structures such as dikes against water, drainage system improvement, controlling the water volume in each river course like Pasig-Marikina River project , and the relocation of informal settlements.

All these solutions try to control the water within the line between land and water, within the drainage system, and clean up all disturbing factors (the informal settlers).

But, in Manila, the disaster still happens, it has never been mitigated. The root of such consequence lies in the discordance between the way we understand water and the way we manage it.

The government’s approach can be visualized in terms of 2 and 3 dimensions to understand what is the government’s attitude towards water and how their way of managing water constructs the vulnerability.

2D: Water is understood through the natural division of the river basin. However, how we manage it is based on the administrative boundary. River - usually natural boundary of a certain area, also, overlapped with the administrative boundary of Metro Manila. The complete river basin is divided into fragmented parts.

The complicated government structure makes it even worse.

Even subdivided into LGU named as ‘barangangs’. The parallel system of disaster management in LGU level fails to cooperate with each other, which result in the incompleteness of the project.

3D: According to the diagram, the government structure of Metro Manila in terms of disaster management is quite complicated and lack of clear division of responsibility and cooperation.

The diagram organizes all the departments according to the four phases related with disaster management, prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. DOST is in charge of disaster prevention to Integrate DRRM & CCA in local development policies, plans and budget, community based assessment, mapping, analysis and monitoring to increase resiliency of infrastructure systems and increase communities’ access to disaster risk financing and insurance, establish/improve monitoring, forecasting, early warning systems. The division of DRRM & CCA is responsible for sensitive environmental management. DOST direct the DPWH (department of Public Works and Highways) in terms of planning, design, construction and management. The responsibility of DPWH covers infrastructure works cross different scales. The regional office is in charge of national highway, road and bridge while at barangay scale, DPWH will also take charge of flood control system, and the division of MWSS constructs, maintains, operates and manages the infrastructure. Besides, DOST will also formulate science and technology plan, and promote, assist and coordinate other departments in terms of early warning. PAGASA (The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration) is responsible for weather advisory, flood forecast, hazard mapping and vulnerability.

DILG is in charge of disaster preparedness, to Increase level of awareness and enhance capacity of the community, Increase capacity of local councils, offices and operation centers, strengthen partnership and coordination among all key players and stakeholders, equip communities with skills and capacity, and develop and implement comprehensive national and local preparedness and response policies, plans, systems.

In terms of response, DSWD will assess needs and damage at all levels, search rescue and retrieval, provide basic social services and psychosocial needs and safe and timely evacuation of affected communities.

Usually cooperating with DSWD, the LGU (local government unites) collects data on available land, creates local land use plan and provision of housing and community infrastructure. But the local government unites lack fiscal authority, political support and technical capacity which make it impossible for informed decision. Besides, it makes the master plan implement difficult for MMDA who creates NCR master plan and development framework because there is no cooperation between local government unites.

DSWD will assess damages, losses and needs, construct or reconstruct disaster and climate change-resilient infrastructure, restore, strengthen or expand economic activities, and psychological recovery, help communities to rebuild or repair houses to be more flood resilient. UPAO will collect data on informal settlements, monitors the growth of households, and identifies legitimate beneficiaries of housing programs while Local housing boards will facilitate access to secure tenure and affordable housing, assist LGU in creating local shelter plan, identify and recommend housing related projects, assists LGUs in review and approval of subdivision plans, monitor compliance to balance housing and recommend use or allocation of the special housing fund. UPAO and local housing boards are divisions that required but actually they do not exist in all LGUs. Complicated government administrative structures make it even worse, causing the implementation of projects to be even harder and resulting in the poor management afterwards. Despite the fact that the government structure in three dimension is way too complicated to operate well and there are too many broken links between divisions or departments of different hierarchy, the problem also lies in the conflict between the community-based Indigenous cultural model of the local communities and imported political structure which is alien to the context and culture in Philippines. ‘pakikipagkapwa’ which means shared community in Filipino shows that the local communities rely on barangay or community power as way of coping with disasters. Which resulted that people does not trust the effectiveness of the government, especially poor people, the local people did not realize the function of the flood defend infrastructure, they even misuse or destroy some part of the infrastructure.

DISASTER MANAGEMENT PREVENTION - DOST Integrate DRRM & CCA in local development policies, plans and budget Community based assessment, mapping, analysis and monitoring Increase resiliency of infrastructure systems Communities access to disaster risk financing and insurance Establish/improve monitoring, forecasting, early warning systems DRRM & CCA - sensitive environmental management

DPWH --- flood control system (barangay scale)--- national highway and bridge (city scale) DPWH- public works Planning, design, construct,management

DPWH REGIONAL OFFICE --- road and bridge(city and barangay scale) public: construct, maintain, operate, manage MWSS private: Regulate

PREPAREDNESS - DILG Increase level of awareness and enhance capacity of the community Increase capacity of local councils, offices and operation centers Strengthen partnership and coordination among all key players and stakeholders Equip communities with skills and capacity Develop and implement comprehensive national and local preparedness and response policies, plans, systems

informed dicision not possible LGU - lack fiscal authority, political support, technical capacity collect data on available land create local landuse-plan provision of housing and community infrastructure

RESPONSE - DSWD Assessment of needs and damage at all levels Search rescue and retrieval Provide basic social services and psychosocial needs Safe and timely evacuation of affected communities

MMDA create NCR masterplan and development framework RECOVERY - NEDA Assessment of damages, losses and needs Construct/reconstruct disaster and climate change-resilient infrastructure Restore, strengthen or expand economic activities Psychological recovery Rebuild/repair houses to be more resilient

NO COOPERATION BETWEEN LGU

master plan implementation difficult

HLURB - indirectly attribute to the upgrading of informal settlements create comprehensive landuse plans writes design standard for socialized housing and the national housing building code certifies HOA

assist incapable LGU

required but not exist in all LGU

UPAO - collect data on informal settlements collect data on informal settlements monitors the growth of ouseholds identifies legitimate beneficiaries of housing programs

Local housing boards facilitate access to secure tenure and affordable housing assist LGU in creating local shelter plan identify and recommand housing related prjs assists LGUs in review and approval of subdivision plans monitor compliance to balance housing recommand use or allocation of the special housing fund

NHA - provide housing needs for 30% population assist LGU with relocation and reserttlement projects develops implements comprehensive resettlement plan ......

DOST formulate science and technology plan promote, assist and coordinate

collaborate R&D program on water pollution prevention and abatement DENR protect and conserve environmental and natural resources issue inviornmental permit for development

PAGASA weather advisory flood forecast hazard mapping and vulnerability

[COMMUNITIES] ‘bahala na’ = leaving it to god = Normalization of threat There is a proverb in Filipino” bahala na” which means leaving it to god. This proverb shows Filipino’s attitude to disaster – the normalization of threat. Filipino think disaster must reoccur, what happened in the past is likely to repeat itself following a familiar pattern, so they adapt it instead of against flood and accept flood as realities of life. They think disaster is the revenge of god, a fate beyond control.

Unlike the government way of defend against flood, the local communities’ attitude is to live with uncertainty and develop their own way of dealing with disasters.

There are three typical types of communities in Metro Manila.

Like all cities, the informal settlement lives in the most undesirable area of the city, in Metro Manila, is the riverside. This map shows the distribution of informal settlements along Pasig-Marikina river system, and also, the formal residential area.

If tidal level high in Pasig River, a flood may occur. Usually, the flood duration is 3 to 5 hours, and 30 to 180 centimeters in depth.

The coping mechanism of a local community, especially the informal settlements, relies heavily on the Barangay network which can immediately identify the places frequently flooded in the community with early warning system so the people of the community can evacuate before flood devastate them. And the barangay network will also relay message to who do not have radio set (PAGASA: The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration).

Floodwater will damage the temporary components of their houses like floors, roofs, bathrooms, walls, stairs, doors of their dwellings. Informal settlers will stock up goods and candles, pack things, strengthen the post, roof and wall before a potential flood to make themselves flood-resistant. They will purchase timber plank or cardboard boxes to rebuild their hut if their house structure is damaged during a flash flood. And they have to work longer after flood season to earn money. They have to pay huge repair expenses, which almost remove their savings, so they will get financial assistance from relatives, members of civic organization who provide relief goods (for example, Lion, Rotary club, and Haycees…)

Or even, they will get money from other types of informal sources for emergency needs, which usually needs high interest of 20-50%, depending on the duration of loan.

In terms of transportation, private transportation is limited during flood for both gated communities and informal settlers. According to a report on informal settlers, 31% of the settlers work or study 1km radius of their home, 38% 1 to 5 km, 31% 5-6km.They have to rely on public transportation including jeepneys, buses and trains which means they have to spend extra money on transportation. Also, there are other kinds of transportation like tricycle, bangka, raft, push cart and pedicab. It is even harder for working women to transport because sometimes they are not allowed to cling to the moving vehicle during flood.

Then I pick up one typical area, try to find out how the local communities understand the flood and what is the coping mechanism of different social groups.

This mapping shows the affected flood area, and the topography and building height of 3 selected areas. It shows a clear situation that the urban poor lives in the most dangerous area in the city, and often, in the lowest land in the section.

The next drawing, I try to make comparison between two major social groups - the gated community and the informal settlements in terms of their coping practice before, when, and after flood.

Before a flood happens, the gated community spare more time for the preparation before the disaster happens. They move their stuff upstairs, elevated their first floor, even when the community work together, they raised money to improve drainage or build flood mitigation infrastructure within their community.

In comparison, the informal settlers have little to do for preparation. They can just strengthen their housing and rely on their community power for early warning.

The male of the family strengthens the post, roof and wall to make themselves more flood-resistant.

But the urban poor are better at adaptation when the flood already happens.

They can build temporary structures using sandbag or wood for immediate transportation sometimes it benefits the richer residents. Also, they will construct temporary dikes or flood defend infrastructure together for their community. ‘ The gated community recover quickly after floods, hey just needs to work longer hours afterwards to pay the loan from the bank while the urban poor suffers a long duration of recovery, especially there is a big flood. These drawings show the building typology of the community. The house can be divided into two components, the durable structure and the makeshift temporary components. When a serious flood or typhoon happens, they will rebuild their houses and cut the daily expense and all family member engaged in any kinds of possible employment. Sometimes it takes a family near 10 years to pay for the loan including the 20-50% interest because they can only borrow money in informal ways.

All agents contribute to construct vulnerability of Metro Manila.

They have their own way of understanding and coping with water, they all work on their own but it does not work. They even constrain each other.

>> Hydrological moments [SITE] Overflows move not just in complex ways across the earth, also in complex times.

I pick up a typical site to ground these understanding of water on a specific site.

The Manggahan Floodway is first an engineer project which was built in 1986 to reduce the flooding along the Pasig River by diverting the peak water flows of the Marikina River to the Laguna de Bay. Originally, there should also be a new spillway to release water in the Laguna de Bay to help Manggahan floodway to solve the flood problem in Metro Manila. But because of the overlapping government jurisdictions, the government cannot get enough funding from other organizations and it was hard to relocate people along the site of the spillway, so the projects are never constructed. As a result, when a flooding happens, the large volume of water from Pasig Marikina river system will flow to the Laguna de Bay through the floodway, and Laguna de Bay cannot hold such large amount of water that the water will overflow the lake which will result in the surrounding area being flooded while originally these areas are not likely to be flooded. So the flooding problem in this area is totally manmade. Vulnerable here, is constructed instead of purely geographical problem. It is the failure of cooperation of government departments and the engineer works.

Moreover, the engineer solution did not take the geographical problem into account, because the water in Metro Manila is so muddy, that the water flow from the upstream will carry mud and soil to the floodway, which results in the sedimentation problem along the floodway. The sedimentation problem has been last for almost 30 years that the sediment creates a land for the informal settlers to settle down along the floodway, which further, becomes one of the most serious problem in terms of flood risk management.

The gated communities, who is capable of raising money within the community to build floodwall and other flood prevention infrastructure for the community, heavily rely on the urban drainage system to help drain water in the community. Because the floodwall not only keeps the floodwater out from influencing the community, but also, make the water collected from the community hard to be drained. When the informal settlers settled down along the sediment of the floodway, they will block the drainage outlets which the gated community is relying on.

After analyzing different agents’ copping mechanism of water and the impacts of such intervention, it can be seen that each agent have their own way of understanding and coping with water, they all work on their own but it does not work. The flood still happens and it has never been mitigated. Especially on this site, these agents are even constraining each other.

Different agents understanding of water and visualizing these understandings helps represent the flood events in two different ways, from top down solution including engineer, technology and government, to button up local responses of both the rich communities, mid class community and the informal settlers. It can be found that each agents can’t solve the problem on their own. Since their current mechanism cannot cope with disaster effectively, how about create room for negotiation and new partnerships? Each agent takes different responsibilities? What individual can do and what will happen in a systematic scale?

Hydrological moments for new partnership The root of the flood problem lies in the noncooperation among different agents. The idea of centralizing water in the river system is the source of the problem and triggers other problems afterwards.

The government and NGO projects based on scientific analysis and engineering intervention put too much pressure on the Pasig Marikina River system as the only way to solve the problem. The idea here is to first decentralize water. but the problem for decentralization is that each one should take his responsibility, or otherwise, the whole system may fail.

What individual can do and what will happen in a systematic scale? At which scale will the intervention work most effectively and efficiently?

What is the position of designer in this cross scale and cross agent issue? Who can actually work with designers, engineer, organizations, NGO, local settlers or informal settlements? The problem here is to identify, in which spatial and temporal scale can our intervention works, and what kind of new partnership can be made to make such intervention really function and be grounded.

“Disaster as a failure to visualize a terrain.” Then I begin to understand water in a new way – a process of overflow. “…Rain does not flow; it overflows after being held until it exceeds the capacity of that particular holding. It then held again in a more extended realm…” Overflows move not just in complex ways across the earth, also in complex times.

In which hydrological moments are these communities located? This understanding helps us to identify/clarify the responsibility of different agents and find a new way to manage the water terrain.

If we imagine the urban hydrological system as a branching system, The mid-class local community usually locate on the end point of the branching system, the water collected from the community will flow directly to the streets because the limited open space and nonporous ground cannot catch water within the community. Then the water collected from the street will overflow to the main road and finally discharge into the river system. Though the water volume collected from each community is not very large, but there is large amount of such kind of community, the water will gradually drain into the system - streets should take the responsibility for slowing down the process.

DPWH (department of public works and highway), responsible for planning, design, constructing and managing flood control system and road and bridge in barangay scale should work with LGU (Local government unit) who is in charge of collecting data on available land, creating local land use plan and provision of housing and community infrastructure, but usually lack of technical support to help built street water collection system to collect water from the adjacent blocks.

According to the scale and function of the streets, the idea is to develop different typologies to fit into different situations to increase the capacity of the streets to absorb water.

Gated community, usually located along the main road, because the gated community build floodwall to keep water out, so the huge amount of water collected from the community will rush into the main drainage system. So the gated community should take more responsibility for water retention within the community.

The open spaces of the gated community can be classified according to the scale and function. Some of the open spaces are linear while others have larger spaces to be used as water storage. These sectional perspectives show the typologies how these spaces can be used as water storage and at the same time, integrate with landscape design and recreational functions.

HLURB (create comprehensive land use plans and writes design standard for socialized housing and the national housing building code) should persuade the gated communities that their original method did not work and they should demolish the floodwall and use water retention infrastructure to take the place of it.

If the gated communities can build water retention infrastructure, they can extend the redline when the water collection system can be integrated with the urban water system.

The informal settlements, who live in the start point of the system, suffered most from the impact of flooding. In terms of environmental justice, slums are not cancer, we cannot make a plan of ignorance of the existence of the urban poor, the idea here is not only working with the informal communities living in undesirable land but also learning from them. During a flash flood, the housing structure of the informal settlements will be partially destroyed, the informal settlers had to build and rebuild their house before and after a flood events. After the decentralization of the water volume, the pressure on the floodway to discharge water has been partially released. If we think the water volume remains a certain amount, the idea of decentralization can release the pressure on the start point of the hydrological system (the Manggahan floodway). Since the government power cannot relocate all the informal settlers along the floodway, the ideas is whether the vulnerable area can still be occupied by man, but in a managed way. The informal settlements get water in an informal way that they buy water from nearby communities which means water price of the poorest people is the highest. So DPWH (department of public works and highway) can make use of the existing floodway as structure for water supply system and build infrastructure such as bridge and road for the informal settlements to get access to the drinkable water. When a flood happens again, the informal settlers will spontaneously build their house near to the water supply infrastructure, then the morphology of the informal settlements can be organized in a controllable level. Besides, the informal settlers should take the responsibility to help dredge the sediment along the Manggahan floodway and at the same time, it can create livelihood for the settlers.

>> CHANGING CLIMATE [beyond capacity] the process of overflow in space and time

CASE STUDY

BEYOND CAPACITY Disaster should be understood in the context of climate change. How our infrastructure can be renewed to meet the challenge of changing climate?

When the precipitation keeps increasing with the changing climate, the capacity of the water storage system should be along with the pace. The first idea is to densify the water retention infrastructure. So a phasing process to update our infrastructure should be made to meet the changing climate.

However, the idea of densifying the infrastructure to capture and retention water can be effective during the first or second decades of climate change. But all infrastructure has its max capacity, we cannot endlessly densify it in plan and depth. This is what we can learn from the Netherlands.

After 50 years, when the building will be renewed and it is time for rethinking our building typology to react to the hazards and the changing climate.

If we understand water as a process of over flow, the idea here is to slow down the overflow by inserting another layer. For community, streets should take the responsibility, then look at source of water, it is from the blocks. How we design new block type to make use of it for water retention, and at the same time, integrate with the community life. For gated community, the water is first from the buildings. New building type for water storage, design the ground floor to integrated with the open space of the community. The idea is to meet the challenge of the changing climate through slowing down the process of overflow in space and time.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank, first and foremost, to my thesis supervisor, Dorothy Tang, who is always inspiring and supportive. It is a great fortune to have a supervisor who gave me the freedom to explore on my own and at the same time the guidance for me to be on the right track. What Dorothy has taught me is how to question everything especially the commonplace which we always take for granted.

Thesis is not about what you have done but what you gained from the process.

Thanks my thesis group mates Jennifer, Emma and Rita, and my friend Kiwi, Juno, Tom and Kara for sharing thoughts and ideas. Thanks the staff of the NGO who I have contacted during my research process and provide supportive information and data for my project.

Thanks my friend in Metro Manila for providing on site information and life experience of my site. And also, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Ashley Scott Kelly and Mathew Pryor for helpful feedback on my project and constructive suggestions. Thanks my friend Kate Lau for all the supportive suggestions and information.

To all my friends in faculty of architecture of HKU, thank you for all the supports in these two years.