The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is refocusing government’s water security strategy to optimize and maximize utilization of the country’s water resources through infrastructure that enables “multi-tasked” usage of the national resource. Aside from this, government is also looking to tap other water sources and to recycle wastewater. This, as the need for stable and steady water supply increases on the back of growing demand and the threat from the El Niño weather condition.

Environment Secretary Antonia Loyzaga said the DENR will be working closely with other concerned government agencies such as the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the National Economic and Development Authority, the Local Water Utilities Administration, and the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System on the possibility of building public water supply facilities for multiple usage including irrigation, power generation, industrial and commercial use as well as domestic consumption.

“We are looking at our respective budgets and our programs to see how we can design multipurpose infrastructure to actually serve the different needs of agriculture, power, water for domestic use, and for industry,” Loyzaga said.

Loyzaga said the DENR and DPWH are jointly studying the construction of more water collection and impounding systems as well as flood control structures as mitigation approaches to climate change and its impacts.

Loyzaga added that water conservation and efficiency, along with multipurpose water infrastructure such as dams, reservoirs, sewage treatment plants, associated irrigation canals and water supply networks which may be used for more than one purpose for economic, social and environmental activities will address the different dimensions of water security in the country.

The DENR is also working with the Department of Finance to see how the government can incentivize public-private partnerships for bulk water supply and other projects that can deliver water where it is most needed. Meanwhile, the World Bank has expressed interest in funding multipurpose infrastructure to address sectors that are critically in danger because of climate change.