Jakarta, Ekuatorial – National Disaster Mitigation Agency or BNPBN predicted floods will be happening in Jakarta, in January, especially in 78 spots.
“Based on climate prediction, rain with high intensity will be occurring from mid December to early January. The peak would be on mid January,” said Lilik Kurniawan, director of BNPB on a discussion, on Tuesday (2/12).
Kurniawan added that Jakarta’s floods were caused by land use change resulting to decrease water catchment areas. “Most of water catchment areas are located in South Jakarta. There is less ten percent of total Jakarta area meanwhile ideally one city must have 30 percent of water catchment areas,” he said.
In addition, he said that natural causes also causing floods in the country, for instance ground level rise due to geological factor in the southern area of Java meanwhile land subsidence occurring in the northern part. It is causing land subsidence in Jakarta making the area more prone to floods. He added that global warming resulted to sea level rise also contributed to the floods.
Rosyid of Hydrology and Oceanography Agency of Indonesian Navy, said that tidal floods also threatening Jakarta. It is predicted, he added, that Jakarta Bay tidal would reached 1.1 meter on January to February. Though it was considered as normal, he said that water surcharge from the river will worsen tidal floods.
To anticipate flooding, Batari of Ciliwung River Management Agency, Ministry of Public Works, said that they been normalizing rivers in Jakarta, such as Ciliwung, Pessangerahan, Krukut, Cipinang, Depok, Angke, Sunter and Cisadane. “Besides normalizing, [we are also] dredging rivers to increase water capacity of rivers,” he said citing that they have increased Ciliwung and Pesanggerahan capacities up to 2000 cubic meters per second. “In addition, there will be one additional floodgate in Manggarai to increase its capacity from 330 cubic meters per second to 500 cubic meters per second.”
Despite of the normalizing plans, Kurniawan said each areas need to have back up plans to deal with floods, starting with evacuation plans, inventory during floods, and early warning system. He also underlined the importance of water catchment areas through better spatial planning, for instance set up more green parks. Januar Hakam