"To free Jakarta from floods is a truly herculean job requiring a huge budget."
~ The Jakarta Post, 1996
In Flood Series Part 1, I have written about the rather nice, little surprises that a flood event can bring into a city. Yet, it will be foolish to deny that flooding or inundation brings a tremendous amount of problems and discomfort which both the people and the government need to deal with.
Unfortunately, as the opening quote succinctly summarized about the nature of the past and the current flood control measures, flood control is an expensive business, and at the current rate, it might well be a mission impossible. Why is that so?
In year 2000, the Jakarta Municipal Government had set aside 52.6 billion Rupiah for flood prevention and control programme (The Jakarta Post, 13 Nov 2000), followed by Rp. 105 billion in 2011 and many others in between. However, the problem does not seem to diminish in any way. In fact, it continues to escalate in both severity and complexity. With these facts here staring at our faces, anyone in their right minds would at some point ask the question: what could have possibly gone so fundamentally wrong, such that all those expensive measures are doing nothing to help anyone? An intuitive guess would be that these costly efforts are somehow misdirected somewhere.
Pauline Texier (2008) analyzed the situation post-2007 flood, identifying the hazard-focused nature of Jakarta Government's flood control policies as one of the fundamental problems in the misdirected effort. In this post, I will focus on the first and the biggest misdirection, namely the disproportionate emphasis on structural flood controls.
Firstly, the overt reliance on structural flood controls via large-scale irrigation works, construction of dikes, dams and canals has proven to be both insufficient and unsustainable. The high cost of these engineering works have caused many governments in developing countries to depend on external fundings and loans. For instance, approximately 30 million US Dollars of Asian Development Bank (ADB) lending had gone to flood control structures between 1968 and 1999. In addition, 80% of ADB emergency assistance facility goes to post-flood damage reconstruction and rehabilitation. The 2009 construction of embankments and elevated roadways in Penjaringan district was funded by JICA. It is most unfortunate that many of these structures are not properly maintained as the local government is unable to continue funding their operation and maintenance. The poorly maintained facilities are increasingly becoming burdens and liabilities to the government and the local people, in addition to not being able to perform its intended function of protecting the city from flood.
As if the monstrous financial cost of these structures were not enough, ill-conceived flood control measures can even aggravate the problem that they are trying to solve. Bursting embankments that drive the city into a state of panic are classic examples of flood-prevention gone wrong. Reliance on dikes and embankments without proper understanding of the local watershed system will also deprive the natural floodplains of their nourishment, leading to sediment accumulation on one side and sediment deficit on the other. Excessive sediment accumulation reduces the river's discharge capacity and heightens the risk of overflows, whereas the lack of sediment replenishment on the other side may cause the land to subside and sink, rendering it even more vulnerable to subsequent flooding. We have seen the failure of structural embankment in Yangtze River Flood in 1998, whereby engineers and the military personnels were forced to dynamite artificial levees and open floodgates in order to save downstream cities from massive inundation.
Big misses have occurred elsewhere in the region and ADB water policy in 2001 has urged countries adopt, formulate and implement integrated water management, involving social, environmental and technological solutions as opposed to mere structural solutions.
Jakarta's flood problem is a multidimensional one. Global warming and eustatic sea level rise is causing the maximum spring tide level to increase over the years. On the other hand, heavy urban development and excessive groundwater withdrawal causes the land to subside at the rate of 12cm to 50cm per year, with the northern part of Jakarta facing the most severe subsidence. While maintaining status quo is certainly not an option if we want to keep the city afloat, structural enhancements alone are insufficient at best and detrimental at worst.
It is almost clear that flood control idealism is extremely unrealistic - we cannot keep the water away forever. It has to go somewhere. Protecting the upstream cities with embankments will lead to more intense flooding downstream. Thus, the new buzzword is now flood management. Instead of keeping the water off the city at all cost, a good flood management makes it a point to understand the underlying natural processes within the watershed and to ensure that if flooding occurs, the city will be ready to deal with it on many levels.
The people have already known that they are living in flood-hazard areas. The government's responsibility is therefore to stop the illusion that flooding can be eradicated or prevented, to work with the experts in understanding the river basins and other natural behaviors of these places, as well as to work with the communities to implement flood management and emergency preparedness. Ultimately, the communities affected by flood are the actual environmental resource managers who determine the success or failure of flood management measures.
Last but not least, I apologize for the heavily technical nature of today's post. I hope you find it useful to some extent. If you are interested in reading up more about the technical stuff, here is just a few articles (which I have also referred to while writing this post) to get you started:
ADB Water Policy and Plan <http://www.adb.org/sectors/water/adb-water-policy-plan>
Akmalah, Emma, 2010, "Integrated flood management model: A socio-technical systems approach", PhD Dissertation, Colorado States University
Jha, Bloch and Lamond, 2012, Cities and Flooding: A Guide to Integrated
Urban Flood Risk Management for the 21st Century
Texier, P., 2008, "Floods in Jakarta: when the extreme reveals daily structural constraints and mismanagements", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 17 No. 3 pp. 358-372 <www.emeraldinsight.com/0965-3562.htm>
The Jakarta Flood Hazard Mapping Framework <http://www.hkv.nl/documenten/jakarta_flood_hazard_mapping_framework_mh.pdf>
News Articles:
Flood Control in Bangladesh
<http://www.sdnbd.org/sdi/issues/floods_drainage/article/flood%20control%20in%20Bangladesh.htm>
Chinese Floods Displace Millions
<http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1998/08/chin-a11.html?view=print>
Freeing Jakarta of Flood <The Jakarta Post, 13 Feb 1996>
The Jakarta Post: Rp 52.6b for flood control <The Jakarta Post 13 Nov 2011>
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