Jakarta needs to rein in population and building boom to reduce flooding
Lynn Lee, Indonesia Correspondent Straits Times 23 Nov 09;
OF LATE, Ms Nikita Yu has been greeted by dark skies as she gets ready to go to work.
Heavy and sometimes prolonged downpours have been occurring two to three times a week, casting a dampener on her daily plans.
Taxis would be in short supply, she said, adding that she would either not be able to get a cab, or spend up to an hour waiting for one to arrive.
'If it rains in the afternoon when everyone's heading home, rush-hour traffic is much worse. It would take me at least 90 minutes to get home, and for the most part, I'd just be sitting still in traffic,' said Ms Yu, a manager with an electricity transmission and distribution multinational who moved to Jakarta two years ago. She usually takes half the time to get home.
The bane of commuters - the rainy season - is back again. And along with the predictable flooding comes the usual hand-wringing and finger-pointing at what or who's to blame for it.
This year, the rains began a bit earlier. Jakarta usually experiences wet weather from December to the end of March.
Earlier this month, Indonesia's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency warned that low- to medium-intensity rainfall, along with strong gusts of wind, would likely occur in Jakarta over the next few weeks.
As it does every year, the rain and strong wind will fell trees and lead to slippery roads, causing more accidents and exacerbating the city's traffic snarls.
A number of areas will also experience flooding. Ms Yu's workplace in the Pulo Gadung area is one of them. It has not happened yet this year, she said, but 'once the water reaches the front entrance, we get a phone call telling us to work from home'.
Indeed, flooding is a huge problem during the rainy season in Jakarta and its surrounding satellite cities, which have a total population of 25 million people.
Two years ago, continuous rain for three days in February caused around 60 per cent of the city to be waterlogged. In some areas, the water was said to be up to 7m deep.
More than 50 people were killed, thousands fell sick with diarrhoea and dengue fever, and 450,000 people were displaced. Internet access and electricity were down and the highway to Jakarta's international airport was also waterlogged, with thousands of passengers stranded at the airport and a few hundred flights cancelled.
Mr Rachmat Witoelar, then the environment minister, blamed climate change, saying it had caused sea levels to rise and affected coastal cities like Jakarta.
It is true that two-fifths of Jakarta lie below sea level. But experts agree that the main cause of widespread seasonal flooding is the sediment and garbage- choked network of rivers and canals in the city.
There are about 13 large rivers that flow through the greater Jakarta area, with 18 main canals and 500 smaller canals. The canals were built by the Dutch colonial administration two centuries ago to control flooding by channelling excess water back into the sea.
But as the greater Jakarta population expanded - some reports say abou 250,000 people move into the area each year - squatters began to set up shacks along river and canal banks, dumping their trash and human waste into the waterways.
At the same time, an expanse of concrete malls and towering apartment blocks slowed down the absorption of rainwater into the ground.
According to studies by the World Bank, Jakarta is also sinking. This has been caused by the extraction of groundwater by industries and home owners, which in turn reduces the groundwater absorption rate.
Since the 2007 floods - which officials estimate caused losses of up to 8.8 trillion rupiah (S$1.3 billion) - the city administration has begun dredging rivers and canals to improve water flow, while spearheading river clean-up campaigns.
Mobile water pumps are on standby, ready to be used on the toll road leading to the airport in case it floods. River embankments are also being raised.
The head of Jakarta's Public Works Department, Mr Budi Widiantoro, said last week that armed with a budget of 200 billion rupiah, the agency has been dredging sections of 64 medium-sized rivers in the last few months, and 1.5 million cubic m of silt is expected to be cleared from them by the middle of next month.
But littering in waterways remains a problem. Mr Tarjuki, a Public Works Department official, told the Jakarta Globe newspaper that his agency could collect up to 10 huge dump trucks of trash from waterways per rainy day.
Some community groups have urged Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo to enforce a law fining people for littering, but the governor said most of those who throw trash are too poor to pay the fines.
Experts studying the perennial problem of flooding say measures such as increasing the capacity of existing waterways, educating residents against littering and building new canals - a flood canal in East Jakarta is expected to be semi-operational next month - are only short-term solutions.
In the years ahead, Jakarta's rampant growth of people and buildings will need to be checked to reduce the flooding. This can be done by creating more urban centres across Indonesia that can serve economic and commercial functions, urban studies professor Deden Rukmana said in an article in The Jakarta Post earlier.
'The annual floods are strong evidence that Jakarta cannot sustainably accommodate its rapid growth,' he wrote.
