Environmental History

1. Environmental History
Lesson 19:
Presented by:
NAVARRO, JERAMIE P.
BSCE 1-B

2. Objectives:
• Explain Philippine experiences
relevant to the occurrence of
disasters, the spread of epidemics,
and damage to the environment
through time.
• Demonstrate an appreciation for
environmental issues and how these
affect the lives of Filipinos.
• Critique the government response to
disasters, diseases, and
environmental degradation.
• Compose an op-ed regarding current
issues relevant to this lesson.

3. Lesson Introduction
📌 The world risk index in 2017 named Philippines as
among the top three countries with the highest hazard
risk as it experience an average of 20 typhoons and 100
to 150 earthquakes every year.
📌 As a country in the Pacific ring of fire and the Pacific
Typhoon Belt; natural hazards have been a part of the
Philippines historical development as a nation.

4. TAAL VOLCANIC ERUPTION COVID-19 PANDEMIC
🏷️ Has the country’s experience with the realities of its nature
allowed for nuanced management of the environment?
🏷️ How have Filipinos been affected by its environment in the
past?
🏷️ What information can we learn from this experience that
could be useful today?

5. 📌 We could situate the analysis of ecological data
such as geography, geology, climate, weather, and
pattern of diseases and use it to manage the risks
that hazards pose to the people.
📌 We could also look into the environmental
impact of human activities that exploit the natural
world, such as mining, urbanization, and
industrialization.

6. DISASTER

7. What is disaster?

8. Disaster
👉 are serious disruptions to the functioning of a
community that exceed its capacity to cope using its
own resources. Disasters can be caused by natural,
man-made and technological hazards, as well as
various factors that influence the exposure and
vulnerability of a community.

9. Hazard
🔎 Any phenomenon that has the potential
to destroy life and property.
🔎 A hazard only becomes a disaster when
this harm potential has been fulfilled.

10. 📌 Western scholars argue that there are areas of the world that are
more prone to disasters-countries who just happen to “unluckily” be
situated in the “ring of fire” or “typhoon belt”-they fail to consider
that a society’s vulnerability to hazard is not solely dependent on
natural forces and that preventing disasters is a matter of improving
scientific prediction, engineering preparedness, and the administrative
management of hazard.
📌 the result of hazard’s unmitigated risks, could be reduced through
adequate knowledge, preparedness, and risk reduction. In short, when
disasters happen in the Philippines, it is not because we are unluckily
located in a place where hazards usually occur.

11. 👉 Disasters happen in the Philippines
because despite the reality of natural
hazard occurrence, Filipinos are unprepared
to mitigate hazard risks.

12.  Earthquakes occur at an average of five times a day.
 We have 220 volcanoes, around 25 of which are classified
as active, with the three most active (Mayon in Albay, Taal
in Batangas, and Canlaon in Negros) erupting 98 times
between 1572 and 1992, 41 of which were described as
destructive.
 Typhoons also regularly sweep the islands from the Pacific
Ocean, especially from June to November, averaging 20 to
30 a year and with wind speeds more than 200 kilometers
per hour.

13. Secondary Hazard
🔸 Secondary Hazard also pose disaster
threats.
🔸 Earthquakes cause soil liquefaction and
trigger landslide.
🔸 Landslides are more frequent, especially in the
more mountainous provinces of the country.

14. 🔸 Hazards associated with volcanic
eruptions are lava flows and lahar.
🔸 Lahar can immediately destroy and bury
anything on its path, or heavy rains could set
off lahar deposits in the slopes to flow to the
low-lying areas
🔸 Typhoons also set off hazards such as landslides,
lahar flows, and the more frequent flooding of
lowland areas.

15. 📌 Greg Bankoff is a non-western
historian with interests in the role of
disasters in human societies, resources
and risk management, the
environmental consequences of modern
conflict, human-animal relations, and
the development of colonial science.
📌 Records of disasters in the Philippines during the
Spanish colonial period before the nineteenth century
are somewhat scant, resulting in a very uneven account
of disasters in the archipelago, usually just focusing on
Manila and Central Luzon, less on the rest of Luzon
and the Visayas, and close to none in Mindanao.

16. 🔸 1754 – The eruption of
Taal Volcano, resulting in
days of intense darkness
and the destruction of
three towns and the
flooding of Lake Bombon.
🔸 According to a Spanish
account, the year 1641, in
particular, was a
devastating year. Marked
by earthquakes, storms,
the caving in of high
mountains, and the
eruption of three
volcanoes.
🔸 1762 – a strong
typhoon damaged
British ships on their
way to capture
Manila, which
drowned many of
their crews.

17. 🔎 1895 — Manila Observatory was
established
🔎 1881 – 1889 — more advanced measuring
devices was used.

18. “Midnight Killer”
 One of the most damaging earthquake-
related disasters in history happened in
the Moro Gulf in 1976.
 An 8.0 magnitude earthquake occurred
near Sulu and Mindanao.
 Triggering four to five-meter (13 to 16
feet) height tsunamis.
 Killing at least 5,000 and rendering
90,000 people homeless.

19. 🔎 Volcanic eruptions are not as frequent as
earthquakes, but when they happen, they cause
enormous damage, especially the explosions of
Mayon and Taal. Twelve volcanoes have been active
during historical times, but this is not a good
indication of volcanic activity, as shown by the 1991
eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which, before this
catastrophic event, was quiet for 600 years.
Historical data shows there is often a correlation
between earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, as
increased seismic activity occurs before and after
eruptions

20. Mayon Volcano
📌 erupted 58 times since its first
recorded eruption in 1616.
📌 The most violent eruption of Mayon
Volcano happened in year 1814, as
nearby towns of Camalig, Cagsawa,
Budiao, and Guinobatan were severely
damaged.
Taal Volcano
📌 erupted 35 times since 1371, most recently, in
2020.
📌 1911 Taal eruption remains to be the most
disastrous among volcanic eruptions, as it killed
1,335 people.

21. Hibok-Hibok
📌 located in Camiguin
Island
📌 19 eruptions, most
destructive in 1953
Bulusan
📌 located in Sorsogon
📌 erupted 17 times since
1852
Canlaon
📌 located in Negros
📌 15 eruptions recorded

22. 🔎 Tropical cyclones, typhoons, and their
epiphenomena (or secondary hazards) such as
landslides, storm surges, and floods are far
more destructive than earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions combined.
Tropical Cyclones
🔸 The ordinary variety responsible for rainfall that
makes land conductive for agriculture.
Typhoon
🔸 A much more destructive natural calamity.

23. 🔸 Around 25 percent of the world’s tropical cyclones
and typhoons occur in the Philippine Area of
Responsibility.
🔸 In the Filipino language, we do not make a
distinction between tropical cyclones and typhoons,
since we use a singular term, baguio or bagyo.
🔸 Historical records show that an average event
lasted four to six days in Shanghai and Japan, while
in the Philippines, it is a day longer.

24. 🔸 Seasonality can also be identified-while
tropical cyclones and typhoons can
happen any time.
🔸 more frequent between July and
November, or what we refer to as the rainy
season.
🔸 302 out of the 397 tropical cyclones
recorded between 1880 and 1898 took
place in those five months. And only nine
between January and March.

25. 🔎 Experts today note that due to climate change, the
strength, frequency, and seasonality of tropical
cyclones are changing.

26. 🔎 Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan internationally),
one of the strongest typhoons to hit the
Philippines, made landfall in November
2013, took eight days to dissipate, and killed
more than six thousand people while more
than a thousand were declared missing It
caused damage amounting to more than 100
billion pesos. Stronger typhoons were
recorded and made landfall in the
Philippines more recently, such as Typhoon
Rolly (with international name Goni) in 2020
and Typhoon Ferdie (with international
name Meranti) in 2016.

27. 🔎 Hazards are indeed a reality in the country, and it is
not going to change anytime soon. What should change
is the way our government handles disaster
preparedness and disaster risk reduction management.
There is no reason for Filipinos to suffer disasters due to
these hazards if the necessary preparation is done
through sound policy informed by science and the
country’s historical experience.

28. Thank you
and
God bless!!