Development issues regarding Bunot Lake: the Lesser Lake among the seven lakes of San Pablo City, Philippines

Abstract

Bunot Lake exhibits the worst conditions among the seven crater lakes of San Pablo City in the Philippines. It is the most polluted lake, being oversaturated with fish pens/cages. It also hosts the largest concentration of illegal settlements. These attributes strongly suggest that Bunot Lake merits much greater attention in the agenda of its two administrative agencies, the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) and the City Government. The reality, however, is that Bunot Lake is lacking key development initiatives and programmes and seems to occupy a low priority to the LLDA and the City Government. This reality is particularly perplexing as the lake is located very near the urban centre, is closest to the premier lake (Sampaloc Lake), and is the site of the first commercial production of tilapia in floating cages in the city. Against this background, the present study identifies and analyses the immediate development issues for Bunot Lake. It contends that Bunot Lake should be given preference by the LLDA and the City Government, specifically by: (i) modifying their model-template approach; and (ii) taking steps to tackle a basic need of Bunot Lake, namely the formulation of a zoning-development plan. The present study also was designed to directly address the lacuna in Philippine lake studies, namely the paucity of research under the social science perspective (which is currently dominated by the natural science perspective) and on small lakes (which is currently concentrated on the largest lakes in the country).

Development of a small lake: Ecotourism enterprise for Pandin Lake, San Pablo City, Philippines

“…; IATSS ). This paucity of studies is consistent with the established lacuna in Philippine lake literature, namely the scarcity of small lake studies despite their abundance in the country, noting the overwhelming majority of the studies focus on major lakes (Brillo ; see also Guerrero , ), and the dearth of development‐oriented studies (with the overwhelming majority being limnological and aquaculture studies; see Brillo ,c, ,b,c). This situation suggests the need for a formal study on Pandin Lake ecotourism development to supplement the lack of information on this small lake, as well as ameliorating the literature deficit to a small degree.…”

“…The existence of small lakes must be recorded, particularly as some in danger of drying out (e.g. Manlalayes Lake of Dolores Quezon) (Brillo ,c, ,b).…”

Changing water quality and thermocline depth along an aquaculture gradient in six tropical crater lakes

“…The pressures are both exogenous and endogenous; cage aquaculture is commonplace, plantation agriculture is a predominant land cover leading to run-off, and both urbanisation and tourism (and the depositing of untreated sewage) and associated demands on resources have expanded rapidly (Brillo, 2015b;Bannister et al, 2019). Monitoring of the lakes by the Laguna Lakes Development Authority (LLDA) 1996-2016 reveals a recent history of significant eutrophication, fish kills, HABs and water hyacinth proliferation (Brillo, 2015a(Brillo, , 2016a(Brillo, , 2016b(Brillo, , 2016cLLDA, 2009;Santiago & Arcilla, 1993;Zafaralla, 2010). The LLDA uses a DO concentration of < 5 mg/l to delineate "Class C" lakes (Department of Environment and Natural Resources Resources, 2021), below which fish health is affected.…”

Local governance of Gunao Lake, Tikub Lake and Dagatan Lake: Small lakes of the Mount Banahaw–San Cristobal–Malepunyo Corridor, Philippines

“…The concentration of such studies, however, is on the abiotic and biotic features of large lakes throughout the country (Brillo ; see also Guerrero , ). To date, and despite their abundance in the country, few studies have dealt with small lakes, particularly on aspects of their governance (see International Lake Environment Committee (ILEC) ; Downing ; United Nations Development Programme‐Water Governance Facility (UNDP‐WGF) ; Brillo ,c, ,b,c). The reality is that biological and physical studies alone, without complementary governance studies, are simply inadequate to sustainably develop lakes and address their problems.…”