Integrated evaluation of changing water resources in an active ecotourism area: The case of Puerto Princesa city, Palawan, Philippines

Abstract

Rapid urbanization, tourism, and climate change (CC) threaten water resource management in developing countries. Conventional water-planning tools cannot account for the changing effects of water disparity, climate risks, and environmental flow (EF) requirements. This paper proposes an alternative approach that applies stylized water-demand forecasting and predicting water availability from the perspectives of CC, changing society, and EF, thereby providing managers with future scenarios of surface water sufficiency/deficiency in an active ecotourism area, namely, Puerto Princesa City, Philippines. We considered (1) scenarios of seasonal droughts to prepare for climate risks in the future and (2) scenarios of water availability that do not depend on groundwater supply, in which the projected water deficiency is frequent both annually and seasonally. The results of this case study showed that an additional water supply from the Montible Watershed to the city was projected to secure sufficient amounts of water to achieve surface-water sufficiency, which is consistent with the goals of both the municipality and the water company to reduce the dependency on groundwater. Moreover, significant infrastructure investment costs must be anticipated in Scenario 3. Our approach proves efficient in modeling water demand in regions with active tourism and hydrology and therefore has the potential for further analyses and application.