Puncak damage shown in water level
Puncak damage shown in water level
Theresia Sufa, The Jakarta Post, Bogor
The water level in the Katulampa dam in Bogor has become a
reliable yardstick to measure the environmental destruction in
Puncak hills, an expert has concluded after extensive research.
Director of the Spatial Planning and Development Center of the
Bogor Agriculture Institute (IPB), Ernan Rustiadi, said on Friday
that the wild extremes in the water level of the dam has shown
that the water catchment areas in Puncak have been diminishing at
an alarming rate because they have been converted into
residential and/or commercial areas.
The unregulated development has also cut off water to many
green areas and agricultural land, rendering them non-arable and
infertile, and thus unable to soak up water and take pressure of
the dam.
"If the government and the local administration continues to
turn a blind eye to the environmental damage in Puncak, within
five years, the Puncak area down to Jakarta and its surrounding
will be completely destroyed like Bahorok," he warned, referring
to the massive flash flood in North Sumatra last month that wiped
a whole town off the map and left nearly 200 people dead. That
flood was blamed on irresponsible logging and development
upriver.
Ernan was speaking in the opening of an international seminar
on Land Use and Land Cover Change and Environmental Problems from
Dec. 19 to Dec. 21 at the Hotel Salak. Experts from Japan, China,
India and Malaysia are among the 70 participants.
The water level in the rainy season in Katulampa dam has
become overloaded, essentially because the lack of green areas.
Ideally, the runoff from the reservoir in the wet season should
be less than five times what it is in the dry season. At present
the reservoir's water flow in the rainy season is 740,000 liters
per second compared to 1,200 liters per second in the dry season.
The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency has recently warned that
there would be rain for between 26 and 28 days in January with
the rainfall of between 50 and 100 millimeters per day. It said a
heavy rain averaging 75 mm per day for three straight days is
enough to inundate the capital.
"Regulations alone are not enough to stop the conversion of
green areas into industrial complexes, as we know that many
presidential decrees on environmental protection in Puncak have
been ignored by businesspeople.
"What we need is better control and cooperation between the
government and the public," Ernan explained.
The seminar has four main themes: land cover change related to
urbanization, the conversion of agricultural land contributing to
food shortages, deforestation and water crises.