Members of the UP Diliman National Institute of Geological Sciences – Environment Monitoring Laboratory (EML), the UP Diliman Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology (IESM), and the UP Los Baños Department of Chemical Engineering (DCE) conducted a two-week fieldwork on Sanga-Sanga Island in Bongao Municipality, Tawi-Tawi, from May 19 to 30, 2025. This fieldwork is part of the ongoing collaborative research project titled “Simulation and mAthematical modeLing of seawater inTrusion in a selected island in the Philippines” (SALT Project). The project aims to better understand seawater intrusion in vulnerable island communities.
The field team included Dr. Robert Michael DiFilippo and Bea Marie Medina from EML, Dr. Ramon Christian Eusebio, Dr. Butch Bataller, Dr. Evaristo Niño Cando, Rendell Molina and Maria Celeste Aquino from DCE, and Dr. Maryzonee Ligaray and Elaine Claire Macaspac from IESM. Four graduate students also participated in the fieldwork to collect data for their thesis research.
The objectives of the trip included initial water quality scoping of hand-dug wells and the local water district pumping wells, recording of groundwater level data, conducting vertical profiling of electrical conductivity and tidal studies on selected coastal wells, reconnaissance geologic mapping, and key informant interviews with barangay and household representatives. All observations and data gathered during the fieldwork will be used to develop a conceptual model of the island’s groundwater system, which will serve as the final output of the SALT Project.
(top) water level gauging of a hand-dug well (middle) geologic reconnaisance (bottom) water quality analysis.