Urban River Rehabilitation: A Case Study in Marikina City, Philippines

Urban rivers are vulnerable to different processes and activities that pollute and degrade the water ecosystem. Restoring their health poses a huge challenge to governments and other actors. This paper examines a ‘success’ case of a LGU-initiated river rehabilitation program in the Philippines in two sequential phases; the first phase which targeted physical restoration of the riverbanks and solid waste clean-up of the river (1992-1996) and the second whose main task is mitigating liquid discharges and improving river water quality (currently ongoing). Despite noteworthy achievements at the local level, effectively addressing two no less difficult tasks of trans-boundary nature of the water quality problem and the integrated and adaptive management required for maintaining healthy rivers seems to lie beyond the overall capacity and mandate of the local government in a decentralized system of government in a developing country such as the