Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment: Sorsogon City, Philippines

CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION ASSESSMENT REPORT SORSOGON CITY, PHILIPPINES Prepared by: Ma. Adelaida Mias‐Mamonong Reinero M. Flores CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION ASSESSMENT: SORSOGN CITY, PHILIPPINES 2 Table of Contents I. Project Background..........................................................................................................................3 II. Assessment Framework..................................................................................................................4 III. Climate Change Impacts in the Region and Sorsogon City.......................................................5 3.a Tropical Cyclones and Storm Surge:......................................................................................6 3.b Extreme rainfall and increased precipitation .........................................................................8 3.c Increase in temperature............................................................................................................8 3.d Sea level rise..............................................................................................................................8 IV. Vulnerabilities to Climatic-induced Hazards and Climate Change Impacts ............................9 4.1 Human Settlements...................................................................................................................9 4.1.a Poverty .........................................................................................................................14 4.1.b Health and Nutrition....................................................................................................14 4.1.c Access to Water and Sanitation................................................................................15 4.1.d Social Capital...............................................................................................................15 4.1.e Gender and Disaster Risk Reduction ......................................................................16 4.1.f Education and limited knowledge and information on CC.....................................16 4.2 Public infrastructures and linkage systems .........................................................................17 4.3 Livelihoods, Trade and Business ..........................................................................................18 4.4 Land Use: Existing Development Pattern based on the City Comprehensive Land Use Plan...................................................................................................................................................23 V. City Greenhouse Gas Emission Profile.......................................................................................28 VI. Adaptation Practices, Adaptive Capacities, and Constraints...................................................31 VII. City Government Self-Assessment..............................................................................................54 VIII. Conclusions and Proposed Actions to be considered: .............................................................57 IX. Annexes ...........................................................................................................................................61 CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION ASSESSMENT: SORSOGN CITY, PHILIPPINES 3 I. Project Background Climate Change is fast becoming the preeminent development challenge of the 21st century. The future of hundreds of millions of people around the world will be determined by the pace of adaptation and mitigation undertaken by our cities. In an urbanizing world, cities are both the cause of, and most vulnerable to climate change. The inherent vulnerability of the Philippines to natural disasters stems in part from its geographic location. As an archipelago situated in the Pacific ring of fire, with its large mountainous terrain, narrow coastal plains and interior valleys, the Philippines has always experienced natural hazards like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tropical cyclones. The UNDP’s 2004 Global Report on Disasters ranked the country as highest in terms of tropical cyclone occurrence and resultant deaths and third in terms of people exposed to such events annually. An average of 20 cyclones traverses the country yearly, causing physical and economic devastation. Climate variability affects the amount of rainfall, with El Niño producing droughts and La Niña bringing floods. UN-Habitat in collaboration with the UN system in the Philippines has engaged in a joint programme entitled “Strengthening the Philippines’ Institutional Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change” approved and supported by the Spanish Government thru the MDG-Fund thematic window on Environment and Climate Change. UN-Habitat’s main task to contribute to the delivery of “improved coping mechanisms through pilot adaptation project” defined in the project’s Outcome 3. Specifically UN-Habitat shall showcase a climate change resilient human settlement in Sorsogon City. Parallel to the efforts of the UN system in the Philippines in responding to the challenges of Climate Change, UN-Habitat is also implementing the Cities in Climate Change Initiative (CCCI), a component of the Sustainable Urban Development Network project. SUD-Net CCCI has also identified the Philippines particularly Sorsogon City as a demonstration site for the project. The implementation plan of the two projects was therefore harmonized as one project billed “Strengthening Philippine City Capacities to Address Climate Change Impacts” to ensure complementation of efforts and achievement of desired results/outcomes. SUD-Net CCCI would bring in innovative approaches and solutions for urban, regional and national development planning while the MDG-F support shall facilitate for a platform for ground-truthing such approaches through demonstration projects. Sharing of knowledge and good practices/learnings on climate change mitigation and adaptation will also be a primary focus of this project to build the foundation for increasing Philippine City capacities in addressing climate change impacts. CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION ASSESSMENT: SORSOGN CITY, PHILIPPINES 4 As an initial activity for the “Strengthening Philippine City Capacities to Address Climate Change Impacts” project, a vulnerability and adaptation assessment was conducted to contribute in the overall project strategy and delivery. Outputs and findings are presented in the following sections of this report. II. Assessment Framework The climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessment conducted for Sorsogon City worked on defining the city’s vulnerability context through estimates of its adaptive capacities, sensitivity, and exposure to climate variability and change (figure 1). The assessment process considered the recommendations, insights and discussions presented in the IPCC Third and Fourth Assessment Reports, the UNDP-Adaptation Planning Framework, VARA, and UN-Habitat vulnerability assessment tools. Figure 1 V = fx (I – AC) Where: V = Vulnerability, I = Impacts, and AC = Adaptive Capacity As defined by the IPCC, adaptive capacity describes the ability of a system to adjust to actual or expected climate stresses, or to cope with the consequences while sensitivity refers to the degree to which a system is affected, either adversely or beneficially, by climate related stimuli. Exposure meanwhile relates to the degree of climate stress upon a particular unit of analysis. It may be represented as either long-term change in climate conditions, or by changes in climate variability, including the magnitude and frequency of extreme events. CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND ADAPTATION ASSESSMENT: SORSOGN CITY, PHILIPPINES 5 Following the formula in Figure 1, Vulnerability thus is a function of a range of biophysical and socio-economic factors, commonly aggregated into three components that include an estimate of adaptive capacity, sensitivity, and exposure to climate variability and change. After review of existing tools, the assessment team together with the city government employed the following steps deemed crucial in coming up with the vulnerability and adaptation assessment: 1. formation of the city Technical Working Group 2. Levelling-off: Definitions, frameworks and objectives 3. Assessment of climate sensitivities 4. Identification of vulnerable groups 5. assessment of future vulnerabilities and current adaptation modalities III. Climate Change Impacts in the Region and Sorsogon City Sorsogon City lies from 123° 53’ to 124° 09’ east longitude and from 12° 55’ to 13° 08’ north latitude. Sorsogon City is situated in the Philippine’s Bicol Region. It is 600 kilometres southeast of Manila and is located at the southernmost tip of Luzon. As part of the geographical Figure 2 chain linking Luzon to the rest of the Philippines, it is a transhipment corridor and serves as the gateway to the Visayas and Mindanao Islands. Its geographical location is such that it opens into both the Pacific Ocean and the China Sea. Sorsogon City has a total population of 151,454 based on the 2007 national census of population. It is considered as the largest city in Bicol Region in terms of land area and one of the region's leading cities in terms of urbanization. It is also one of the most populous cities in Bicol region. The Province of Sorsogon where the City is located has been identified by a study of the Manila Observatory and the Department of Environment and Natural Resource to be at

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