Reviving rivers, rebuilding civilization

MANILA, Philippines - Rivers have played key roles in the world’s earliest civilizations. Early human settlements lived side by side with the river. Rivers fed their food crops and animals. People who navigated their rivers upstream enabled the first exchange among riparian communities both in trade and culture. The rivers also helped flourish early towns and cities and helped shape the history of our great metropolitan cities today. 

Rivers today are either a source of pride or shame. Most developed countries have integrated their river systems into their development plans. This has benefited the river from improving its water quality, developing riverfronts, and conserving its own ecological biodiversity. A revitalized river brings invaluable benefits. It is an indicator of the quality of life. 

This is not often the case in developing countries particularly in the urban areas where rivers are being treated as ‘backyards’. Domestic and industrial wastewater is indiscriminately thrown into the river converting it into big sewers. Riverbanks become prime locations of informal settlers exposing them into disaster risks. 

Not just pollution but there are far more development challenges on our rivers. In the countryside, unregulated water extraction from rivers to irrigate farmlands may cause serious damage to the natural river flow and groundwater supply. Invasive species keep threatening the river’s endemic system. Impact assessments on dams have not yet outweighed the social and ecological damages on the displaced communities. 

Climate change poses greater risks to our rivers. In some of the world’s greatest river systems, rivers regime are highly dependent on glaciers. Higher temperatures will have huge devastating imbalance on freshwater fishery production, water supply and even geopolitical security. Some countries will experience prolonged drought while some will experience unusual flooding. Political decisions as to construct dams and regulate fresh water extraction may need further consultation with other countries that share transboundary rivers. 

The Philippines shares some of these challenges common to developing countries. The country has 421 principal river basins, a primary source of water and socio-economic development of the country. But they are in varying states of degradation. Diminishing groundwater resources has led to 20 percent to 30 percent reduction in irrigated areas. Stream flow has been erratic and micro climate has been deteriorating (IRBM Master Plan, 2007). Degradation is exacerbated by rising trend of flood and other water induced disasters, pollution as results of urbanization and industrialization, and inadequate sewerage and sanitation facilities and indiscriminate land use to name a few. 

The development imperative is to face and befriend the river. International cooperation and inter-local partnerships have become viable strategies in addressing all of these challenges. By revitalizing our rivers, we share the visions of our earliest communities in living side by side with their once healthy rivers.

The 2nd International River Summit in Marikina City on Nov. 19-21, 2014 will raise the serious challenge to bring back rivers into the development agenda.

Co-organized by the Department of Natural Environment and Resources-River Basin Control Office (DENR-RBCO), League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) and Marikina City, as the host city, the 2nd International River Summit is an important platform of the world’s rivers as they face their most serious threats yet and find more effective common grounds as to how they can overcome these challenges. The Summit underscores river basin governance as the key sustainable management framework in protecting and conserving river systems. 

The Summit enjoins all the world’s most important river stakeholders – the national and local authorities, policy experts, river managers from both public and private sectors, the academe, leaders in clean water technology, and river advocates and students – to take the serious challenge in integrating our rivers into the quality of life. 

Mayor Del R. De Guzman of Marikina invites us to understand more about rivers and floods at the 2nd International River Summit with the theme “Reviving Rivers, Rebuilding Civilization” on Nov. 19 to 21, 2014 at the Marikina Hotel and Convention Center, Marikina City, Philippines.

For registration, please contact the Marikina City Summit Secretariat at (632) 0917-552-4627 and (632) 975-5112 or e-mail [email protected]

For inquiries, please email [email protected] or you can fill out form in our page http://www.irsmarikina.com/