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Urban resilience, disaster risk reduction forum slated

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Amid typhoons, earthquake predictions, and climate change manifestations, the Philippines will hold the Urban Resilience to Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Management Strategies Forum to combat natural disasters’ effect that had caused $1.7 trillion in global damage, impacting many urban populations.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau will host the forum on Dec. 4-8, 2017 in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte, a province known to be adversely impacted by drier weather or drought.

The forum will provide an avenue for the exchange of information and coping mechanisms and adaptation strategies on the impacts of climate change and urbanization in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations region.

“With the urban population expected to increase by at least 2.5 billion by 2050 according to UN reports, pursuing urban resiliency should be an important agenda for all policy and decision makers, resource managers, and environmental scientists and researchers,” said Henry Adornado, ERDB-DENR executive director.

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The forum will be participated by established research and development practitioners from various academic and research institutions in Asean who are working on urban ecosystem, environment and natural resources management.

Global damage of natural disasters from 2000 to 2012 had reached to  $1.7 trillion globally, according to the “Urban Climate Change Resilience” study of the Asian Development Bank.

“Direct impacts of climate change are twofold: shocks and sudden impacts such as storms, typhoons, and heat waves; and stressors that build gradually over time such as sea level rise, average temperature increase, and long term changes in rainfall patterns,” the ADB report said.

Impacts include severe flooding “that stop port or train operations, affecting travel to work and preventing goods to reach market; blackouts as energy generation is affected by storms; increased risk of water or vector-borne diseases due to rainfall and changes in temperature and heat stress.”

“We want to be vigilant and prepared in any eventuality as a result of climate change. We need not wait for another disaster to happen before we get our acts together,” said Adornado.

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