Climate Cafe 2021 Cebu riverchallenge: Guadalupe River Midstream Division

Description

Original post by Joshua Rebaño

Climate Cafe 2021 is participated by Filipino and Dutch students from the Rotterdam University, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, and University of San Carlos. The two-week-long online event aims to create solutions for four rivers of Cebu City, Philippines. One of the rivers that are focused is the Guadalupe River which is 42 kilometers long and stretches from the mountainous barangay of Sapangdaku and discharges into the Mactan channel at barangay Ermita.

The biggest problem regarding the Guadalupe river is the increasing amount of disposal into the river. The waste consists mostly of domestic waste and sewage water. The Guadalupe river is considered as the dirtiest river in Cebu City. The consequences of river pollution range from health problems for people who use the river water for drinking water, to environmental problems like the decrease in organisms in the river and the waste that the river disposes into the sea. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) classified the Guadalupe River midstream portions as a Type C classification back in 1999. Classification C means that the river can only be used for boating, fishing, and agriculture. From the site visits that were done by one of the group members, the group infers that: the river is narrower than expected, pollution is evident and visible through the color of the water and the piled up solid waste, people are dumping domestic waste into the river, and the residents near the river are using it to get sand and recyclable materials. At its current state, the group concludes that the river is now in Class D which states that it can only be used for navigational purposes.

The 5th group of the event composed of Joshua Miguel Rebaño, Arley Shane Serrano, Jeff Gerard Vince Tse, Maurits Warmerdam, and Vita Vermeer is assigned to the midstream portion of the Guadalupe River. The group aims to create a solution that would address these problems and for the LGU of Cebu City to implement it and provide other solutions for the rivers as well.

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Ruben Matahelumual

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