Manila Is Sinking?

 The Philippines is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. It is an archipelago made up of 7,106 islands located in relation to many of Southeast Asia's main water bodie such as the South China Sea, Philippine Sea, Sulu Sea, Celebes Sea, and Luzon Strait. Proximate countries include Taiwan, Vietnam, and Indonesia. The geography is mountainous with narrow coastal lowlands. 

The Philippines is among the most vulnerable in the world to hazards such as rising sea levels, floods, earthquakes and typhoons. It gets hit by an average of 20 typhoons a year, which can flood coastal areas. And these tropical storms, scientists believe, are likely to become more frequent and stronger because of climate change.

Manila is Sinking?

Manila is the capital of Philippines. This city is the home for about 12 million people or with a density of 20 785 person per kilometre. In the Manila Bay area, the sea level is rising four times faster than the global average rate of 3.2 millimetres a year which is as high as 13.2 mm per year up to 2018. Scientific evidence has suggested that by 2050, many of the Philippine coastal regions, including the Manila Bay area, could find themselves underwater if countries fail to mitigate the effects of climate change. President Rodrigo Duterte, who is the current president of Philippines had done more than 6,000 flood control projects to protect flood-prone areas across the country.These include the building of pumping stations, dykes and flood warning systems.

 

Why is Manila is Sinking?

 

Excessive groundwater extraction has led to continual land subsidence, which will eventually result in flooding in many parts of Metro Manila. This groundwater extraction process is actually a normal activity to get a clean water, but the problem comes when the volume of water go out from the ground is higher than the water that flow into the ground. The rate of subsidence started to rise during the 1960s, at the height of the city’s industrialisation, when the growing population meant a greater demand for water.

 

if there is no supply of surface water, then they’d need to get it from the ground. This is happened to accomodate the growth of agriculture, fisheries and commercial industries that use large volumes of water but also put pressure on the groundwater resources. In fact, about 60 per cent of the country’s groundwater extraction is done without permits. They don’t have the data on those illegal extractors. This makes the situation become even more worse. 

 

This situation is actually quiet same as the Philippines’ neighbour country, which is in Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta. Jakarta is the fastest sinking city in the world, which as fast as 10 centimetres per year. In pasrts of North Jakarta, which is particularly susceptible to flood, the ground has sunk 2.5 metres in 10 years. This is one of the factor that lead the government decisions to move the capital city to a new place in Borneo Island. Other that qualifier activity, it is believes that tectonic activity and the load of heavy buiding caused the subsidence of the city.

 

There is also other important city in the word that also sinking like Manila and Jakarta such as Beijing, China and Washington, USA.  

 

How to overcome this problem?

 

in Philippines, 50 percent of the population already live in cities based on data from the Philippine Statistics Authority. As the population gradually rises to 146 million by 2050, they would need 100 new cities. Manila is too crowded and hard to manage. One of the mothod to overcome this problem is by reducing Manila’s Urban density by relocating government offices to other region. Indeed, work has started on a new metropolis called New Clark City, about 100 km north of Manila becoming the seat of the national government by 2030. Some key government offices, like the Department of Transportation, have already relocated there.

 

Other than that, the government can reduce the primacy and the attractiveness of Metro Manila by developing other urban growth city. This method will alliviate traffic and overcome the lack of housing and many of the urbans ills.

About myself

 

Hi there! My name is Muhammad Hazmi, and you can call me Hazmi. I am a teenager, who live in Melaka, Malaysia but my secondary school is at Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. Nice to meet you!

 

I just want to tell you that I love Economy and Geography the most. HEHEHEHE. I am the third of the five siblings. I don’t sure what is my hobby, but I guess my hobby is watching Youtube, since I spent a lot of my free time there. I learn a lot there, so I don’t think that hobby is wasting time, but sometimes, yes I agree with that statement.

 

In the future, I want to live in a urban city like Putrajaya, Cyberjaya, or Kuala Lumpur. HAHAHAHA. You see there, my demanddd. I just want to live in a very green world where I can walking to the work and take MRT to my friends house. That is the pros of urban area, but urban also have ills, like today the spread of disease is skyrocket in a vast city and the air and water pollution. But its okay. Together, we can! HAHAHAAHA. We need a more green and safe urban city to live in!

 

 

I think this 3 paragraph of ‘ME’ are enough for you to know about me. This is my first blog ever. Although I make this blog because of the assignment, but I think I will continue after this, so stay tune guys, hihihhi. I’m more comfortable writing blogs than making vlogs!

 

Okay guys, that’s it! See you guys later! Bye Bye!