Jakarta's Highway Collapse Just A Warning of What’s to Come, Scientist Warns

Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 22 Sep 10;

Last week’s collapse of a section of road in North Jakarta foreshadows wider environmental damage along the north coast as a result of human activity and climate change, a scientist says.

A 103-meter, two-lane stretch of Jalan RE Martadinata fell into the Japat River last Thursday. While the cause of the collapse is still being determined, most experts have blamed it on subsidence or soil erosion around the base of the piles.

Alan Koropitan, a marine expert at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), on Wednesday warned against ignoring the collapse’s wider implications.

“Whenever we get a disaster like the Martadinata collapse or the Situ Gintung levee breach, everyone starts talking about it,” he said. “But afterwards there’s nothing. We also end up neglecting other parts of the country that experience the same problems.”

Alan said the entire northern coast of Java was mostly sandy, thus an increase in property development would deplete groundwater and eventually lead to more subsidence.

“So we’ll have a lot more Martadinatas happening in the future along the northern part of Java,” he said.

“Meanwhile, Surabaya [in East Java] will face rising tides with waves up to 4 meters high, which will threaten the area with seawater. While waves that high are considered normal for Java, add in the effects of climate change, especially stronger winds, and greater frequency, and the waves will hit the northern Java coast much harder.”

The higher seas would also be felt in Sumatra which, while spared from high waves, would face seawater intrusion into its groundwater supplies.

“Meanwhile, the western coast of Sumatra and southern coasts of Java, Bali and West Nusa Tenggara will face higher rates of coastal erosion from the Indian Ocean,” Alan said.

“These are the things the government needs to plan for, especially when coastal effects are compounded by climate change and human activities, because each area has its own specific characteristics.”

Former environment minister Sonny Keraf said the government was not utilizing its strong legal powers to address environmental issues.

“The 2009 Environmental Management and Protection Law clearly calls for a strategic environmental assessment as the basis for environmental management,” he said.

“This means all kinds of development in a given area must be suspended and an assessment carried out to gauge the environment’s adaptation capacity. In the case of Jakarta, I believe everyone from NGOs to legislators agrees it has reached its limit in terms of environmental capacity.”

Sonny also said a stipulation that 30 percent of the city’s area be dedicated to green space was being flouted. The current figure is just 9.6 percent.

“From the policy point of view, it’s all there and it’s all clear, but these regulations are often overruled by lesser regulations that favor economic growth,” he said.

“Nowadays, development is based solely on economic benefits, so if someone is considering building a park or green space, the first question they’ll ask is: How much profit can I make from that? It’s no surprise then that a lot of green areas have been turned into malls and apartment blocks, because developers only think about their profit margin.”

Darrundo, an environmental and urban planning expert from Jakarta’s Tarumanegara University, said much of the environmental degradation in the capital was the result of “incorrect and irrational” public policies.

“I believe a lot of public policies aren’t rational,” he said.

“For instance, 25 percent of the land area of Jakarta was dedicated to green space, but now that proportion is less than 10 percent because those areas have been turned into malls and apartment blocks.

“For me, policies that encourage that kind of development are irrational.”

Negligent Indonesian Leaders Driving City Into Ground: Activists
Fidelis E. Satriastanti& Arientha Primanita Jakarta Globe 22 Sep 10;

Jakarta. The collapses of a road and an embankment last week are characteristic of the Jakarta administration’s failure to provide basic services for its residents and set a poor example for the rest of the country, an activist says.

A 103-meter, two-lane stretch of Jalan RE Martadinata fell into the Japat River last Thursday. While the cause of the collapse is still being determined, most experts have blamed it on subsidence or soil erosion around the base of the piles.

In the same week, a 115-meter stretch of new embankment along the West Flood Canal collapsed. That incident has been blamed on soil quality.

Slamet Daryoni, the head of urban environmental education at the Indonesian Green Institute, said on Wednesday that Jakarta was “destroying itself.”

“Despite that, it is still held up as a reference by other cities, but we know the city has failed to protect its citizens, mainly through misguided policies and messed-up spatial planning,” he said.

Such policies have led to severe environmental degradation that threatens to usher in a host of disasters, he said.

“If there’s a decline in the quality of the environment, then we’ll see more major disasters like Situ Gintung and Martadinata,” Slamet said, referring to the Situ Gintung levee breach that killed 100 people in 2009.

He said a study by his organization showed that only 33 of the 226 lakes and reservoirs in the Greater Jakarta area were still in good condition.

Darrundono, an environmental and spatial planning expert at Jakarta’s Tarumanegara University, said other threats came from climate change.

“Studies predict that because of global warming, the Jakarta coastline will have receded by 15 kilometers by 2020,” he said. “In other words, you better start trading in your cars for speedboats.”

Darrundono said the problems had never been so acute during the Dutch colonial era, during which time the administration dedicated 25 percent of the city’s total area to green space. That figure is now 9.6 percent.

The administration has vowed that it will to push it up to 13.9 percent, although by law it must be 30 percent.

The Indonesian Green Institute says green space in the city was at a high of 28.8 percent in 1984 under then Governor Ali Sadikin, before falling drastically to just 6.2 percent in 2007, the final year of Governor Sutiyoso’s 10-year term.

Darrundono said much of the lost green spaces were catchment areas for the city’s 13 rivers that had been developed into housing estates, which had led to more problems.

“The buildings extract the groundwater at high rates, resulting in land subsidence,” he said.

The city uses 532 million cubic meters of groundwater a year, or 46 percent of known supplies, according to the Indonesian Green Institute, and it is replenished at a much slower rate.

That exceeds the 40 percent limit recommended by experts and has been blamed for land subsidence of 17 to 26 centimeters a year.

“It’s important that we turn these developed areas back into the catchment areas that they used to be,” Darrundono said. “You can’t just build houses in such areas.”

Private households in Jakarta are prohibited from drawing groundwater, although many do so to avoid paying for piped water.

The administration is trying to get more people to connect to the mains supply, and has raised the rate for groundwater use by the 4,000 registered commercial and industrial users sixfold since last year in a bid to limit the amount extracted.

Jakarta needs to stop, look where it’s ‘growing’: Experts
Indah Setiawati, The Jakarta Post 23 Sep 10;

Jakarta should put development plans on hold pending a reassessment of the city’s capacity, in hope of coping better with deteriorating environmental conditions, experts say.

City planning should be based on an accurate calculation of the city’s population, its environmental conditions and its ability to provide quality living space for its residents, urban management expert Bianpoen said.

He said it was important to first assess the natural capacity of the capital city.

“Jakarta has reached its capacity, and now only the upper echelons of society enjoy quality living standards,” he said recently.

“I recommend a moratorium on the construction of housing and offices,” he said.

All urban cities in developing countries, including Indonesia, should be getting ready for overpopulation, Tarumanagara University civil planning postgraduate program director Jo Santoso said.

“How can we deal with residents who rely on private cars as their main means of transportation?” said Jo, the author of a book on spatial planning, Menyiasati Kota Tanpa Warga (Strategizing a City Without Involving Residents).

Jo also highlighted Jakarta’s dependence on the Citarum River in West Java for clean water, which is only available for 62 percent of the population, with the rest using groundwater, thus placing a massive burden on the environment.

Many buildings and skyscrapers in Jakarta also use excessive energy for air-conditioning, Jo said, adding that the problems in the capital had become so complex they could not be solved by political leaders alone.

“These problems need to be addressed based on scientific research focusing on housing.”

The Jakarta administration needs a grand plan to manage overpopulation, Jo said.

According to a report from the United Nations Population Fund, by 2030 almost 5 billion people will be living in urban areas, with urban populations accounting for more than half of the total populations of Africa and Asia.

Jo estimated that about 95 million people would live in Indonesian cities within the next 25 years. Jakarta is now home to 9.6 million people.

The development of commercial buildings in Jakarta would not be a problem if developers could be held accountable for their buildings’ environmental sustainability, Jo said.

“What we are seeing are irresponsible practices where building managements exploit groundwater supplies instead of using recycled water or collecting rainwater,” he said.

Meanwhile, Dodo Juliman, the head of the strategic unit at the Combined Resource Institution, a community-based network that develops planning and provides information to local administrations, said Jakarta should aim to develop in synchronization with its vision of becoming a service city.

“Telecommunication infrastructure, as one of the elements needed to serve this vision, should be developed without sacrificing the environment,” he said.

Experts have criticized the administration for failing to take environmental issues seriously in its management of development projects.

Recently, a section of Jl. RE Martadinata in North Jakarta, one of the main access roads to Tanjung Priok port, collapsed — allegedly because of erosion. Observers, however, said poor construction was to blame for the rapid deterioration of the road — immediately after urgent repairs.

Last week, thousands of dead fish have been washed ashore in Jakarta Bay, the mouth of 13 rivers that pass through Jakarta. The fish allegedly died from lack of oxygen as a result of heavily polluted rivers.

Dodo said the city often prioritized commercial developments and paid too little attention to provision of basic infrastructure including clean water, sanitation and drainage. He said the city should limit the development of commercial buildings that consumed excessive amounts of energy, such as malls.