As the La Niña phenomenon looms, Environment Secretary Maria Antonia Loyzaga emphasized the importance of climate-resilient infrastructure.
In a Palace interview, Loyzaga said La Niña, the opposite of El Niño, is expected to bring more intense rains.
“It’s really where we need to focus our own attention at this point and in terms of our investment as well. One of them is in what we call climate-resilient infrastructure,” according to her.
Loyzaga said the need may not be solely physical in terms of engineering, but also involves a “combination of gray and green engineering.”
“So, we used both nature-based and the combination of those structural interventions in order to balance water supply where we need most and also deliver it where presumably before there was no water,” she said.
The secretary cited as an example the country’s island barangays, which do not have access to potable water.
“What are the solutions? We need to understand what rainfall they get. Whether they have streams that are alive. In that case we need to provide filtration, whether they have water or not, and will determine whether desalination is the only option,” she pointed out.IMT
