Albay Forms El Niño Task Force

LEGAZPI CITY, Jan. 15 -- Bracing for the onset of the dry spell, the Albay Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council (PDCC) created on Thursday the El Nino Task Force to oversee the implementation of the response strategy to curb the impacts and adverse effects of this climate change phenomenon.

Albay Gov. Joey Salceda, PDCC chairman said the creation of the task force is a preemptive disaster strategy to ward off the negative effects of the dry spell although the province was not included in the list of places to be affected by the El Nino phenomenon.

He said "Albay cannot afford be complacent considering that we have experienced six months low level of rainfall last year and we are at the middle of El Nino areas."

Salceda released an initial fund of P1.5 million to jump start the operation of the Task Force composed of the provincial agriculture, health, public safety emergency management office (APSEMO), social welfare, trade and industry, league of municipalities and the National Irrigation Administration (NIA). The APSEMO will serve as the Task Force secretariat.

The Task Force chaired by Salceda has initially map out measures to mitigate the effects of the dry spell to the community which include among others the conservation of water; cloud seeding to induce rainfall; utilize available water from the underground; use of surface reservoir and food security.

For its response strategy, it will develop small scale short gestation period irrigation system, fast track the rehabilitation of national and communal irrigation systems.

It will formulate and implement agriculture measures designed to increase cropping intensity, optimize area productivity and decreasing water duty and diversifying cropping system.

El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a recurrent ocean-warming and atmospheric disturbance resulting in deficient rainfall or prolonged drought in some areas and heavy rains, storms and typhoons in other areas of the globe.

El Nino usually appears every two to seven years. During the past 40 years the episode rated 1982-83 as the most intense because of the unusual world-wide anomalies it brought.

Adverse impacts to the agriculture sector would be a reduced crop yield or productivity and livestock will be seriously affected; industries, may result to reduced production capacity and loss of jobs; famine for lack of food and desertification as a result of rapid soil degradation.

For social impacts include: health - for possible outbreak and epidemics; electricity that may result to brown outs; drop outs of school pupils and students and out-migration.

The state weather agency recently confirmed that the El Nino phenomenon has entered the country's threshold affecting three Bicol provinces in the first half of this year.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) issued advisory that Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte and Sorsogon provinces are among the 23 provinces in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao regions would be affected by the dry spell. (PNA)

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