South Korea on rehabilitating rivers and river basins nationwide

The government is looking into possibly partnering with South Korea on rehabilitating rivers and river basins nationwide.

"We and South Korea's environment ministry might sign this year a memorandum of agreement on the matter," said Dr. Vicente Tuddao Jr., the environment department's new field operations director and former River Basin Control Office chief.

He said such possibility is not remote since South Korea has technologies for the target rehabilitation work.

"South Korean officials concerned also expressed willingness to assist us in the work," he added.

Government continues its bid to rehabilitate river basins nationwide, noting those areas have the highest potential uses but are suffering from declining carrying capacity and deteriorating life support systems.

Among causes of such degradation are pollution, diminishing groundwater resources, biodiversity loss and declining local productivity, authorities noted.

"Climate change will worsen conditions in our river basins," Tuddao further said.

He said capacity-building training and support in preparing documents like feasibility studies are among South Korea's possible assistance to the Philippine river basin rehabilitation bid.

Tuddao said he came across several South Korean rehabilitation technologies while attending there last week a conference on restoring Southeast Asia's rivers and river basins.

Government classifies river basins as watersheds of over 1,000 square kilometers each and having topographic boundaries covering land within three or more provinces and two or more regions.