Jakarta enlists help from Rotterdam to deal with flood

Andreas D. Arditya, The Jakarta Post 8 Feb 11;

The city administration signed an agreement on Monday with the city of Rotterdam, under which Jakarta would seek assistance on how to deal with flooding in the city.

Under the agreement, part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo and Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb, over the next two years Jakarta would receive assistance for managing flooding in the city, including expertise in the construction of a massive seawall off the city’s northern coast.

Fauzi said that Jakarta needed to learn from Rotterdam, a city recognized worldwide for its water management knowledge and flood control expertise.

“We have done a study and we will copy a water system, including the use of polders, which is integrated with other solutions,” Fauzi said.

Within the agreement the city of Rotterdam would advise Jakarta on the construction of the seawall.

In anticipation of the worsening rate of sinking land and rising sea levels, the Jakarta administration is mulling a plan to construct a giant seawall.

A feasibility study conducted by the Jakarta Coastal Defence Strategy (JCDS) consortium, which is partly funded by the Dutch government, said that the seawall would be able to cope with land sinkage and rising sea levels reportedly caused by global warming.

According to the JCDS design, a seawall would be erected off the Jakarta coast spanning 60 kilometers from Tangerang on the west end of the city to Bekasi in the east.

A project study kicked off in December last year and is expected to wrap up within three years. The city expects to have the seawall ready by 2025.

Jakarta is one among many cities in the country with some areas below the sea level. Forty percent of Jakarta’s land is below sea level.

A study conducted by the Bandung Institute of Technology discovered that the sea level in the Jakarta Bay area had risen at a rate of 5.7 millimeters per year.

Aboutaleb, who was on a four-day visit to the city on invitation from Fauzi, said that Rotterdam was committed to helping Jakarta in dealing with destructive power of water.

“In Rotterdam, we have always had to defend ourselves against the force of the North Sea in the west and the high tides of our rivers. Consequently, we have developed enormous expertise in water management,” he said.

Rotterdam has helped Jakarta over the past two years by providing knowledge on drainage system maintenance.

Flooding has become a major problem in the city. The worst flooding in Jakarta’s history inundated about 70 percent of the city in 2007, killing at least 57 people and driving more than 450,000 from their homes.

The Jakarta administration also expects to start a massive river dredging project soon.

The administration will rely on a US$150 million loan from the World Bank for the Jakarta Emergency Dredging Initiative (JEDI) project, which will dredge 13 main rivers and two flood canals to help reduce the risk of extreme flooding.

The city’s revitalization of the 119-kilometer Ciliwung river, Jakarta’s main waterway, was expected to directly affect more than 210,000 people living along its banks.