Adapting to climate change in
peri-urban Southeast Asia
Bernadette P. Resurrección, Ph.D
Senior Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)
Associate Professor (adjunct), Asian Institute of Technology (AIT)
20 June 2013
Overview
•
Peri-urbanization in Thailand, Vietnam and Philippines indicate:
– Densifying settlements in coastal, riverside or lakeside low lying area or EMRs (Externded
Metropolitan Regions) due to expanding craft enterprises, real estate development, theme
parks, and industrial estates
– Mixed and competing uses of land and water
– Specific water stress drivers: under-developed water infrastructures for supply and
sanitation, weak drainage and increasing pollution, conversion of floodplains or catchment
areas
– Mixed settlements of well-off gated communities with poor communities of inmigrants in ecologically fragile and poorly planned zones
– Weak governance institutions for social protection and managing water stresses
– Low lying deltaic, catchment and coastal zones
•
•
Manifestations of climate change: higher levels of precipitation, longer dry spells and increasing
droughts
Existing and differentiated socio-economic, gender-related and political vulnerabilities of periurban populations
Knowledge gap: need to understand mutually reinforcing dynamics between climate change
effects, socially-differentiated vulnerabilities, and peri-urban related water stresses that combine
to affect people’s capacity to adapt to these stresses in their livelihoods and everyday lives
Objectives (2012-2015)
Research
Identify the drivers of vulnerability of
women and men to climate-related water
stresses in three selected peri-urban case
study areas in Vietnam, Thailand and the
Philippines
Understand their adaptive responses to
these stresses in order to better inform
responsive and inclusive local planning
Professional Development
Build research capacities of urban
development professionals to identify and
analyze drivers and contexts of vulnerability
to climate-related water stresses in periurban that inform future planning
Develop technical capacities of urban
development professionals through
involvement in a Work-Based (WB)
Executive Masters Program with stress on
applications and problem solving learning
Canal
Canal settlement
settlement in
in Pathumthani,
Pathumthani, Thailand
Thailand
Study sites
THAILAND: Krachang,
Samkhok District, Pathumthani
Province, Thailand
(water pollution; water scarcity;
flooding)
VIETNAM: Van Mon
Commune, Yen Phong
district, Bac Ninh Province,
Vietnam
(surface water pollution,
flooding)
Criteria for study sites:
1.
2.
3.
4.
The localities have to show evidence of
the key peri-urban features as defined
in the literature review;
The choice of study site should attempt
to capture a diversity of formal and
informal water and sanitation
institutional arrangements;
The selected study sites should be home
to a significant number of low-income,
informal, and poor households, in
order to gain a better understanding of
the specific adaptive strategies and
practices employed by poor women and
men.
If possible the study sites are located in
low lying areas (floodplains, deltas,
coastal areas, river basins, lakeside
areas)
PHILIPPINES: Sta Rosa, Laguna,
(Water scarcity and flooding)
Theoretical framework: A political ecology approach
Multiple and dynamic drivers of
vulnerability of individuals,
households and communities (1)
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
Poverty
Weak resource access and
control
Market fluctuations
Political excl usion
Historical/spatial
marginalization of the peri urban
Climate variability
Poor infrastructure
Gendered marginalization,
hierarchies and social biases
Weak governance, social
protection, and policy
mismatches between scales
Specific Impacts: (2)
Increase
people’s
risks and
sensitivity
to:
Adaptation strategies
(3) (actions to adjust,
live with, anticipate,
cope with water
stresses)
May
constrain
and serve as
barriers to:
May reproduce
or reduce
earlier
vulnerabilities
Climate-related water
stresses
· Water shortages
· Poor sanitation
· Poor, toxic
water quality
at different temporal,
spatial and
institutional scales
Outcomes of adaptation
strategies (4):
· Reduce vulnerability
(short-term or longterm)
· Reproduce
vulnerabilities
· Create chains of
vulnerabilities
· Shifting of
vulnerabilities to oth er
spaces and groups
· Pathways for synergies
among local groups
and institutions
Methods
Phase 1: Scoping (Months 1-11)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Preliminary information and scoping
on history of water stresses,
interventions, hydrological and
ecological conditions, climate changes
Area mapping of peri-urban water
stress study sites
Socio-economic profiling of
households in most severely waterstressed sites through rapid
assessment
Survey on climate change perceptions
Government and non-government
infrastructure and programs in place
related to water stress
Preliminary gender analysis of
livelihoods, water use and
management
Slicing recycled metal strips in Van Mon District, Vietnam
Phase 2: Investigating vulnerabilities and adaptation (Months 12-24)
6.
Vulnerabilities and adaptation strategies
(i)
Typologizing and investigating patterns of experienced impacts
and vulnerabilities to water stresses based on episode/s
reconstruction with gender analysis;
(ii) Typologizing and investigating patterns of actualized adaptation
strategies to water stresses and their enabling factors and
barriers based on episode/s reconstruction with gender analysis;
(iii) Household survey – to test pervasiveness of qualitative results
on vulnerability and adaptation with gender-disaggregated data
collection
7.
Assessing institutionally-organized and supported adaptation
programs and actions with gender analysis
Early results: Pathumthani, Thailand
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•
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Climate: Higher precipitation by 10-20% (ONEP,
2011)
Peri-urban characteristics: From 10% in 1985 to
30% population increase in 2000; increased
competition for water use; housing projects
from 114 projects in 1994 to 803 in 2008
concentrated on highways and canal areas;
mixed land use results in use of water canals as
wastewater sinks; weak wastewater treatment
capacity
People in study sites: Mostly factory laborers
and small entrepreneurs; respondents are 42
female heads of HHs and 66 male heads of HHs;
15% earning less than 150US$ monthly
Water stresses: (i) excessive water: seasonal
flooding mediated by flood management
schemes, decrease of wetlands for flood
catchment due to changed land use and
extreme flooding (2011); (ii) use of polluted
canal water for households
Flood sluice gate, Pathumthani, Thailand
Early results: Van Mon Commune, Bach Ninh Province, Vietnam
•
Climate: Average surface temperature has risen
0.7°C since 1950; typhoon and flood seasons are
longer; storms are tracking into new coastal areas;
longer dry spells (Chaudhry and Ruysschaert 2007,
Carew-Reid, 2008; ISPONRE 2009, Ho Long Phi,
2008)
•
Peri-urban characteristics: Mixed land use: 38%
non agricultural- 53% agricultural; weak capacity in
wastewater management; high density
•
People in study sites: Livelihoods are mainly
agriculture and artisanal production (metal
melting); 1500 HHs out of which 3000 people
engage in artisanal production; majority are
middle-income households due to metal melting
•
Water stresses: Waste water discharges from
home-based craft industries to canals and public
ponds during floods; Seepage from solid waste
dumps during floods; scarcity of clean water from
ground water boreholes plus lowering of
groundwater levels, and weak operation of newly
built filtered water system
Very simple water filtering system developed by
a poor household in Man Xa village
Early results: Sta Rosa, Laguna, Philippines
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•
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Climate: Longer dry spells and higher incidence of
flooding
Peri-urban characteristics: expanding industrial
complexes and gated communities and their
associated high-end malls replacing agricultural
land; local government unable to monitor the
extraction behavior of the private local water
service provider, the massive extraction of water
by the independent users having their own deep
wells are unfortunately not monitored
People in the study sites: a large resettlement
community of urban poor migrants from Mega
Manila; mostly laborers in construction and
industrial estates
Water stresses: Scarcity of water supply in all of
the studied villages; Mix of formal and informal
water-distribution institutions relying solely on
deep-well drillings; private local water service
provider supplies the middle and lower classes;
gated communities, high-end malls and industrial
complexes have their own independent deep wells
and distribution systems
Early results
Work-based MSc Professional Development Program
•Identification of embedded researchers scholars from
local government units in the research component
•Completed partnership agreement between the regular
school (SERD) and center for professional development
(AIT Extension) on the launching of the study program as a
joint-venture
•Completed curriculum on water and climate adaptation
•Signing of MoA with Thailand’s Pollution Control
Department (PCD-MONRE) for joint promotion of program
(March 2013)
•Result: Fund raising by PCD-MONRE for scholarships from
the private business sector
•Initial promotion and dissemination in Philippines,
Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar
•Result: Cooperation commitment and planning for
sponsoring (through matching fund) or raising funds for
sending scholars to the Program: Department of Local
Government (Philippines); Pollution Control Department
(Thailand); Hochiminh City Environment Office (Vietnam);
two city urban service agencies in Yangon, Myanmar;
•First cohort in January 2014; Second cohort in January
2015
Implications
Conceptual: (contributions to the sub-field of political ecology)
•Gender, climate change and disaster studies: Gender dynamics to be investigated in-depth as they are
embedded in experiences of climate-related water stresses  employing ‘new materialisms’ in gender studies
where experiences of water stresses (re)produce gender subjectivities with implications on water resiliencebuilding efforts  this undermines popular ideas that women are essentially vulnerable to climate stressors
•Peri-urban studies (human geography): Peri-urban conditions and their gendering and social stratifying effects
on lives and livelihood options that question neo-liberal growth policies
•Exacerbating effects of climate change on already existing weak institutional, economic and social conditions
Methodological:
•Inclusion of local government representatives into the research: what worked? What didn’t work? How can we
improve vulnerability and adaptation research that translates into programming (science/research-policy
nexus)?; multi-scalar approaches?
•Useful approaches to investigate the workings of gender in water stress contexts (how can we improve on
existing gender/vulnerability and adaptation approaches?)
Programming for policy/capacity building:
•‘Gender mainstreaming’ and gender planning in adaptation programming – debunking old but taking new
pathways?
•Groundwork for gender- and socially responsive adaptation hubs
•Sensitivity to outcomes of adaptation and the possible emergence of ‘chains of vulnerabilities’
•Less of a climate-centric approach to programming, inclusion of social protection measures and development
approaches
•New MSc graduates from the professional work-based program and the research component
PARTNERS
Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand: Dr Edsel Sajor, Dr Rutmanee
Ongsakul
Centre for Research and Environmental Studies (CRES), Vietnam
National University, Hanoi: Dr Le Thi Van Hue
Social Development Research Centre, De La Salle University, Manila:
Dr Antonio Contreras (Assistant Secretary, Department of Environment
& Natural Resources)