Environment
How Urban Sprawl Intensified Floods in the Philippines
Growth in population and informal settling has increased the flood's toll in Manila.
Unchecked development and rapidly growing informal settlements in metropolitan Manila have exacerbated the devastation of the recent flooding in the Philippines, according to a UN official.
Speaking with The Philippine Star, Margareta Wahlström, chief of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, notes that the growing numbers of people living on unsuitable land in Manila put them directly in the path of the massive but not unexpected flooding that happens during the summer monsoon season.