People told to save water during the rainy season

People told to save water during the rainy season

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) urged people on
Thursday to save as much rain water as possible during the
upcoming wet season, which will likely be even shorter than it
was last year.

BMG head Gunawan Ibrahim suggested that the government and
farmers manage rain water properly. so that they would have
enough water during the longer dry season next year.

"We must be able to provide water during both the rainy season
and the following dry season as the number of people who need
water continues to increase," he told a press conference at his
office.

The rainy season, Gunawan said, was expected to come as early
as late September in certain parts of Aceh, North Sumatra and
Jambi.

Most provinces will see the rainy season arrive between
October and November.

Some parts of east Indonesia, north coast areas of Java and
Madura will be the last ones to get rain.

The upcoming rainy season will peak between December and
January in most parts of the country.

"The rainfall may be much higher, ranging from 500 millimeters
to 2,500 millimeters, but it will occur in a shorter space of
time. Therefore, it may spark natural disasters like floods and
landslides," Gunawan said.

The unwanted consequences of the heavy rainfall are mostly a
result of the dwindling water catchment areas, many of which have
become housing complexes or industrial estates, Gunawan said.

Floods and landslide will likely occur in most parts of the
areas affected the most by the drought because of the poor
condition and lack of water catchment areas.

Many people, particularly those on Java with a population of
128 million, have complained about the severe drought this year.
Because of the water shortages, most of the reservoirs on the
island are at critical water levels, which is starting to affect
hydro power plants and irrigation.

On Thursday, the agriculture ministry's production and food
plants development division head, Djakfar Habsah, told Antara
that this year's drought had rendered at least 92,000 hectares of
farmland useless, and it will be one of the worst harvests in the
country's history.

Learning from the failure, Gatot Irianto, who heads the
Indonesia Agroclimate and Hydrology Research Institute
(Balitklimat), said that the agriculture ministry had
disseminated the information to farmers across the country, so
they could prepare for a shorter rainy season another long dry
season next year.

"We expect farmers to start planting as soon as the rainy
season comes," he told reporters in Jakarta.

Gatot said the farmers have been told to save as much water as
possible in their own reservoirs or tanks to before the onset of
the next dry season.