Urban Nature Series Part 1: Dualism

Nature.

What are you thinking of, as you read the word I singled out?
What was the first picture that came to your imagination?

Depending on where we live and what kind of natural environments we are exposed to, the images may differ. You might be thinking of a tropical rainforest with monkeys swinging off the branches of vine-embraced trees. He might be thinking of a pristine beach with a sparkling blue ocean extending to infinity. She could be thinking of glistening snow-capped mountains and pine trees bent by the wind. 

I wouldn't know.

But, one thing that I know for sure is that you do have a mental picture of what nature is. So do I.

The next question: now, did you see yourself anywhere in those mental pictures?

Probably not. I did not instinctively put myself in those pictures.

We - by default - exclude ourselves from "nature". Why?

Running is Never about Running...

I just came back from an evening run. I haven't been running for almost two years, unless you count running after the bus or running to department office for a last-minute submission.

Why has it been so long, I wondered, but I knew the answer. To me, running has never been about running. It was never about keeping fit, losing weight, getting stronger or getting faster. Never. 

To me, running has always been about something else.

International Day for Biological Diversity and the upcoming Urban Nature Series

Happy International Day for Biological Diversity!

In celebration of International Day for Biological Diversity, I have decided to launch a new series of posts on urban nature and urban biodiversity. This may get a little confusing as the previous "Flood Series" has not ended, but rest assured that you can sort the posts by labels if you wish to read all the posts within a series uninterrupted.

Nature of Illusion: Understanding Positive Illusion in the Rhetoric of Man versus Nature

From the story of creation in Genesis to industrial revolution, from Mao Zedong’s “ren ding sheng tian” (man must conquer nature) to the recently growing popularity of sustainable development, we have been trying to find a place for nature in our world. Many stories involve the idea of man conquering nature, of man fighting a battle against nature, in one way or another. Why is the idea of war, conquest and battle always morbidly fascinating throughout the history of mankind?

The Indoor Man contemplating to step out into nature
"Four Seasons: Summer" by Melissa

Flood series Part 2: Living with Water (From flood control to flood management)

"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:

The Flood Series Part 1 - Patna, the Temporal Dimension of Space and a Little Lesson

It has been quite sometime. Everybody had been talking about the big flood in Jakarta. Firstly, I have to apologize that I had to skip on the topic. Why? It would be unfair for me, who has neither experienced the flood first hand nor lived in Jakarta to write as if I knew anything on the matter. There are many experts out there, activists who have lots to say. There are even more out there, people who are directly affected by the flood and its repercussions. They have things to say too. I don't.

However, I do have a few things to say about flood, because floods have been a part of my life. I was born in the very city that inspired the song "Semarang Kaline Banjir" (Semarang, the flooding river). It was never as big as the recent one in Jakarta, though. The last big flood in Semarang happened when I was a baby, so I would not have remembered a thing. Nonetheless, big or small, flood is a yearly agenda in Semarang.

After living in Singapore for 8 years, flood becomes something more distant. It is only when I was able to distance myself from the everyday reality of flood was I able to offer a different perspective on flood:

Flood, or an invasion of water into dry land, forces the urban space and urban dynamics to change in an instant. 

Singing Songs from an Overhead Bridge



Little Fella~

I cross overhead bridges almost daily in Singapore. For me, the two most important ones are the one right outside NUS Faculty of Engineering and another one outside the School of Design and Environment.

Somehow, over the years, the activity of crossing an overhead bridge has become more than just a way to get to the other side of the road. The bridge has gained a new meaning - a rather abstract and personal one - as a place for short daily contemplations. Sometimes, when I am lucky enough to cross the bridge early in the morning, I can hear the chirping of birds or the rustling of leaves from the adjacent Clementi Woods. A greater luck would let me catch a glimpse of a squirrel making a dash to its safe hideout. In the evenings, I would think about the stray cat, or secretly replay the tune of a familiar song. The song changes everyday.