The state of water resources in the Philippines - Greenpeace

Introduction
This report gathers available information regarding water resources in the
Philippines, focusing on the issues of pollution, especially of drinking water and
freshwater sources, and water scarcity. It also reviews the country’s existing
legal and policy frameworks for water use, quality control, and management.
In an attempt to capture the complexity surrounding the status of water
resources, this report is presented in six parts. The first section focuses on the
general status of availability of freshwater resources, both surface waters (rivers,
lakes, and reservoirs) and groundwater sources. Section 2 follows with a
discussion on water quality. This consists of the following sub-topics:
classification of surface waters, standards used in classification and subsequent
monitoring of water bodies, impacts on health and the environment, and efforts to
address problems on water quality. This part of the report also presents
‘pollution hotspots’--areas that generate the highest volume of water pollution
and/or are severely affected by water pollution.
The status of water use and supply is presented in Section 3. This part of the
report focuses on actual usage of water resources by different consumers.
Different issues pertaining to water use are also identified, including the issue on
access to potable drinking water itself. Over and above these problems, the
report presents in this section other factors that threaten not only water supply
but also threaten the availability of water sources from which supply is withdrawn.
Section 4 presents a review of the existing legal and policy frameworks for water
resources in the Philippines. This includes a discussion on existing guidelines
and standards used to regulate water use and supply, ensure water quality, and
presents the status of the enforcement of these policies and guidelines.
Efforts to initiate and implement Clean Production (CP) programs are then
presented in Section 5, which includes a list of key CP initiatives and concerned
agencies/institutions involved in this endeavor.
The sixth topic, which is the last section of this report, contains the list of
available reports on water in the Philippines and materials that may be used as
reference for future studies.
GREENPEACE | The state of water in the Philippines 10