Flooding

Flooding

With more sunny days, most Jakartans seem to have forgotten
the huge floods in January and February.

There is now a strong drive by the government to restore
Jakarta's outskirts -- the mountains stretching from Cianjur over
Puncak down to Bogor -- which in the past two decades has been
converted into housing and recreation facilities, thus sizably
reducing its role as a water catchment.

Unfortunately there seems to be no such drive from the
responsible ministries to properly manage the drains in the
capital city itself. I think Jakarta's drainage network is in
critical condition and I would ascribe the floods mainly to their
condition, not to what is happening in Puncak -- although the
balding hills are of great concern to anyone who remembers the
lush vegetation of some decades ago.

When Jakarta had only 500,000 inhabitants earlier in this
century, the Ciliwung river already had its two check points. One
at Manggarai where the river branches into a wide canal (Banjir
Kanal, clearly visible from the Dukuh Atas bridge), and the other
at Pintu Air where the river is divided into two canals. One
canal follows Jl. Juanda, Jl. Gadjah Mada and Jl. Hayam Wuruk,
the other lines Pasar Baru and Gunung Sahari.

One may wonder why the city has such an elaborate water
network. The answer is that at the beginning of this century, or
even before, Jakarta had already had to cope with floods.

By the end of this century, with a population close to 10
million, the infrastructure has not been expanded. No parallel
canals to the west and east of the existing canals have been dug
to accommodate water from the newly built areas in Greater
Jakarta.

In order for Jakarta's drainage system to function properly,
drains should be constructed according to strict technical
specifications, and the existing drains maintained properly.
Negligence in maintenance has proven disastrous.

One cannot help feel that our society has no tradition of
urban life, hence there is no urge to properly manage urban
facilities. A well-functioning drainage network does not seem to
be a priority with the city planners at the city administration.
This is one main cause of the recent terrible floods which
promise to become even worse in the next few years.

S. HARMONO

Jakarta