One-meter below sea level: a conjecture
Rodolfo “jojo” Casilang Jr.
9 Nov 2009
Re: Dredging continues but flooding can’t be stopped
Dagupan City should prepare for the rising sea level that is certain to occur in the future: if all of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melts, sea level will rise 5-6 meters; in addition, if all of the Greenland Ice Sheet melts, sea level will rise 7 meters.
Re: “one meter below sea level.”
The claim that Dagupan City is one meter below sea level is not accurate; it is not a fact. It had been presumed by an old-timer self-styled engineer who works at the Dagupan City Engineers Office more than three decades ago. Up until now, nobody in the Engineering department has actually taken measurements of the elevation of the city in relation with the average sea level.
Re: “high tide yesteryear is low tide today.”
Assuming that the old-timer’s guesswork was right and that the “high tide of the past is the low tide of today” is accurate, Dagupan City’s main thoroughfares would be flooded constantly because the city is now more than one meter below sea level; today the city would look like Venice, Italy.
In order to establish certainty rather than making false assumptions, the city should order an accurate survey of these elevations and should set up several observation posts to record the high tide and low tide elevations.
This way the people whom the city is serving will make good decisions in how much to raise their properties according to factual surveys rather than on fancy conjectures; moreover, these measurements would also help the City Engineering Office to plan for the City’s progress.
