Eastern Visayas sits on the path of powerful Pacific typhoons, and in 2013 Super Typhoon Yolanda brought extreme winds and storm surge that devastated Tacloban and nearby towns, killing thousands and affecting millions across the Philippines.  As seas rise and some storms become more intense with climate change, the risk to low‑lying coastal communities grows.  Communities respond using a mix of hard infrastructure and nature‑based solutions, such as seawalls, backwater dikes, and mangrove restoration, each aiming to reduce wave energy and flooding.

In Leyte, the Leyte Tide Embankment Project (LTEP) is a large shoreline protection effort that spans more than 38 km across Tacloban, Palo, and Tanauan, with construction continuing. Because projects of this scale can reshape local economies and daily life, understanding how decisions are made and how benefits and burdens flow is essential for designing adaptation that works fairly for households, small firms, and fisher livelihoods.

This project is supported by the Sydney Environment Institute’s Collaborative Grants scheme and brings together the University of Sydney School of Project Management in the Faculty of Engineering and the University of Sydney Business School, working with local partners in Eastern Visayas. The core team includes Associate Professor Michele Barnes, Associate Professor Sandra Alday, and Dr Henry Bartelet. We worked closely with colleagues at Eastern Visayas State University (EVSU) to coordinate fieldwork, stakeholder engagement, and a consolidation workshop that helped refine practical recommendations.

Between July and November 2025, we carried out 71 semi‑structured interviews with people who are influential in, or affected by, the embankment. Participants included regional and local government officials, community leaders, NGOs, media, businesses, fisherfolk, residents, and other groups. Each interview contributed to a stakeholder network map that identified who holds influence, how information and resources move, and how different actors perceive harm or benefit from the project. We also asked these same respondents whether they believe the Leyte Tide Embankment Project (LTEP) successfully protects communities from severe typhoons.

Across these 71 interviews and stakeholder network maps, our interest was to see where participants agreed and where they disagreed about which actors matter and how they connect; whether network views converged or diverged across stakeholder groups; and how perceived power aligns with positions in the information and resource networks that emerged from the interviews. To support this, respondents provided simple ratings of perceived influence and impact, which we analysed alongside the mapped ties.

Across interviews and network maps, participants commonly perceived the embankment as mainly implemented in a top‑down way, moving from the national level to the infrastructure agency and then to constructors. Local governments were informed and, in some cases, were seen as providing influential input or formal approvals. In contrast, influential input from local communities was rarely mentioned. Taken together, this points to a general perception that while some local government input was integrated, broader community involvement was limited. A practical implication is to design better ways to gather and integrate feedback from communities so affected groups, including fisherfolks, small firms, and embankment households, have a clearer voice in project design and adjustment, which can strengthen future projects and improve perceived fairness.

Meanwhile, interview participants generally felt protection from severe typhoons has improved compared with the past, but they viewed adaptation success as partial and evolving. Based on their insights, we proposed six simple questions for guiding decisions over time: avoid shifting risk elsewhere, plan improvements and maintenance, be transparent about limits under extreme events, weigh value for money and who benefits, and address root causes such as land use and livelihoods.  These locally grounded criteria help agencies review projects iteratively and link physical protections with housing, zoning, and livelihood support.

We will use these findings to develop practical guidance on mapping influence and benefit pathways in adaptation projects. The method supports decision‑makers to track who is included, who is missed, and how to adjust designs so small firms, fishers, and local communities are not left behind. This work builds on our SEI Collaborative Grant, which aims to generate a scalable methodology and compare experiences across sites.

Partners and acknowledgements

University of Sydney and Eastern Visayas State University. We thank Ms Pearly Peja and EVSU research assistants for their leadership and support, as well as all interview participants for their time and insights. This study followed University of Sydney ethics protocols.

Header image: Leyte Tide Embankment Project (LTEP) from Barangay 90 in Tacloban City. All photos supplied by Dr Henry Bartelet