In November 2013, Super Typhoon Haiyan became a Category 5 typhoon, the strongest ever recorded at the time, with wind gusts in excess of 300 kilometres per hour and an associated storm surge that reached a high of 3.5 metres along some coastlines w'ith more vulnerable bathometric profiles. More than6 300 people were killed, over two million were left homeless, and over 13 million people were affected in the Philippines. It caused about USD 15 billion in damages, equivalent to 5% of the Philippines’ total GDP in 2013. An equivalent level of damage to the United States of America’s economy w'ould amount to USD 850-900 billion in damages, an amount four times greater than that caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2011. Water security is defined as “the availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems and production, coupled with an acceptable level of w'ater-related risks to people, environments and economies” (Grey and Sadoff, 2007). It is also understood as the management of four water risks: scarcity, floods, pollution and freshwater ecosystem resilience (OECD, 2013).