Rainwater catchment urban agriculture in Cebu (PH)

Question asked

Cebu City has multiple water related problems. During the wet season floods often occur because of a combination of heavy rainfall, an urbanized/paved area and a poor drainage system. While during the dry season urban agriculture dries out because of a lack of water. The research question is “How can low cost urban agriculture contribute to increasing the water storage and reduce food scarcity during heavy rainfall in Cebu City?”.

Approach

This internship will research the possibility to introduce new forms of urban agriculture in the locations that need it the most. Analyses will be made to answer this question and multiple sub questions. Pilot designs of inexpensive urban agriculture will be made after these analyses. The information from the analyses and pilots will be put into an advice report for Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor and other organisations.

Result

There is concluded that the advantages of urban agriculture outweigh the disadvantages. The disadvantages can easily be avoided by taking certain measurements. The type of urban agriculture that qualifies the most for Cebu City is vertical container gardening. The vegetation that qualifies the most for Cebu City is Asian broccoli regarding the MCDA in the vegetation analysis. Broccoli can hold a large amount of water, the seeds are cheap and it is resistant to the climate of the Philippines. The location chosen for this project is the Alaska Mambaling school.