These Are the Highest At-Risk Philippine Provinces for Climate Change-Driven Disasters
Climate change-driven disasters like typhoons, rising sea levels, or flooding are only going to get worse from here. And the Philippines is set to be one of the worst-hit countries in the world for it. In recent years, we've also learned that the country even has the highest disaster risk among 193 countries, based on this index. This should be more alarming than it is.
Unfortunately, more data has come in to validate our concerns, especially for those of us who live in the province. Recently, the 2023 Gross Domestic Climate Risk ranking by the Sydney-based climate-change research firm The Cross Dependency Initiative shed some light on the climate risk for areas in the countryside.
These provinces, mostly from Northern Luzon, are the highest at-risk areas for damage from extreme weather:
- Occidental Mindoro
- Oriental Mindoro
- Pangasinan
- Ilocos Sur
- Eastern Samar
- Zambales
- Aurora
- Northern Samar
- Cagayan
- Surigao del Sur
- Nueva Ecija
- Tarlac
- Sulu
- Leyte
- Pampanga
- Samar
- Southern Leyte
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All of them ranked among the top 100 regions for damage ratio. According to the agency, there are two types of damage ratios.
The first is aggregated damage ratio (ADR), which "looks at the total amount of damage to the built environment in a particular province." The other is average damage ratio, which "provides insight into states and provinces that may have fewer properties but which may be subjected to greater or more widespread damage, so the proportion of damage is higher."
And out of these 17 provinces, Pangasinan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Cagayan, and Tarlac are the most at risk, based on their ADR.
The top 10 most at-risk areas include nine regions in China, including Jiangsu and Shandong, followed by states in the United States, namely California and Texas.
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