Tracing the roots of the capital's flooding problem

By Bambang Budi Utomo

JAKARTA (JP): A lot has changed since Jakarta was founded 469 years ago on June 22, 1527. Its population has grown rapidly. According to one of the earliest records available, Jakarta had a population of 27,068 in 1673. The number has swollen to nine million this year. Its economy is booming and signs of its development are everywhere.

However, one problem has remained untouched by time, and is even said to be worsening. It is Jakarta's floods. The present situation has been attributed to population density which has reduced open spaces. With less and less space and inappropriate drainage, flooding has become a cause for alarm, especially as more and more land in the southern region of Jakarta, allocated as water catchment sites, has been turned into housing.

The first settlers of Jakarta chose a place by the Ciliwung River close to what is now suburban Condet in East Jakarta. Archeological research backed up by Australian lab research traced habitation in the region back from 1000 BC to 500 BC. In the year 1000 BC, the riverbank population used polished stone implements and lived from agricultural produce. In history the period is known as the Neolithic Age.

Five centuries later, in 500 BC, the people and their intellectual abilities had reached an elevated evolutionary level. It was the bronze period in which people used bronze implements. The people formed settlements and mainly lived off agricultural products.

Several archeological sites indicating early habitation were found in Pejaten, Kramat, Rawakodok (Condet-Batuampar), Condet- Balekambang, Pasar Minggu and Tanjung Barat.

Research conducted in the early 1970s brought to light that the Pejaten site was inhabited by a more advanced people than those living alongside the Ciliwung River. Findings such as ceramic shards, stone axes, square pickaxes, stone sharpeners, metal molds, bronze bracelets and rings as well as iron implements, strongly indicated that Pejaten site dwellers in the year 500 BC were of more advanced intellect. They held rituals for the dead whose funeral was a two-time affair. This could be deducted from human bones found in jars together with pickaxes.

The Pejaten site proved to be an ideal habitat then and now. It is located west of the Ciliwung River, 25 metres above the river water level, making it an idyllic flood-free area and of easy access to river water for the people. Water treatment was done according to technological know-how of the time.

These aspects turned Pejaten into a prime site of habitation then and now because of its panoramic scenes overlooking the Ciliwung River. Today, it is a modern housing estate called Kalibata Indah.

Coping with floods

The first settlers of Jakarta were ignorant people without any inkling of what civilization stood for. They settled in groups, forming a small community and lived in a few simple sheds. Civilization set in after several hundred years.

The first signs of civilization in Jakarta were found in the village Tugu. Here, people were literate and already had a governing order.

History has it that Tugu village was the precursor of what is now Jakarta. The site is located between East Jakarta and Bekasi regency. Tugu is better known now as the birthplace of keroncong music which was developed by long time settlers of Portuguese descent.

In 1870 early inscriptions found in the region spoke of these first settlers of Jakarta. Proof was found on an oval stone, its surface encircled with inscriptions in Sanskrit.

Known as the Tugu Inscription, it was written in the Pallava letters and issued by King Purnawarman of the kingdom Tarumanagara in the 22nd year of his reign. Judging from the lettering style, the message must have been at least inscribed in the year 450.

The Tarumanagara kingdom was devoted to the Hindu god Wisnu, an assumption further affirmed when a stone plaque, found at the Ciaruteun River in Bogor regency, bore a much praised foot imprint of King Purnawarman in his reincarnation of god Wisnu. Another stone plaque was found nearby bearing the foot imprint of an elephant.

From the numerous stone inscriptions, it is assumed that the Tarumanagara kingdom covered the northern region of Jakarta, closely bordering the southern part of Bogor.

From a translation we understood that the inscription reads as follows:

"The Candrabhaga River was dug up by the Great King Purnawarman, the king with powerful arms, who let it flow to sea after running through his palace grounds.

In the 22nd year of his reign, King Purnawarman, exemplary of all kings, decreed that another river producing clear water, called the Gomati, should be made. The river should flow right through the place of the honorable Priest, King Purnawarman's grandfather.

Work started on a chosen day, on the eighth half of the full moon Caitra. The work lasted only 21 days, covering a length of 6,122 tumbak (one tumbak equals 3.6 meters), about 11 kilometers long. A selamatan (thanksgiving feast) was held by brahmans and a gift of 1,000 cows was presented."

Tugu village is located on lowland, part of which contains marshland. Nearby flows the Cakung River. The swamp environment strongly suggests that it was a flood prone area. It is quite likely that the early Candrabhaga River is today the Cakung River which runs from the south into the marshes.

It is assumed that in the days of king Purnawarman, excess water of the marshes was led to sea along a manmade river, the Gomati.

The inscribed message informs us of a king who lived in the middle of the fifth century and who successfully overcame the flood problem in his kingdom. It is, therefore, to be regretted that his skill and wisdom in grappling with the elements vanished without a trace. The river he dug up in 21 days is now submerged in layers of soil, its surface covered with modern housing complexes and factories, which are most likely the cause of East Jakarta's inundations in the monsoon periods.

Entrenched city

Very few historical facts about civilization, if any, were found in Jakarta of the fifth to 15th century. The early period of the 16th century divulged more facts about the Tarumanagara kingdom. It showed that Jakarta was called Sunda Kalapa at the time, a seaport of the Pajajaran kingdom of which the capital was assumed to be in the Bogor region near Batutulis.

According to Tome Pires, a Portuguese traveler living in Malacca at the time, the Pajajaran kingdom owned seaports on the northern coast of Java, i.e. Banten, Tangerang, Sunda Kalapa, Cimanuk (Indramayu) and Cirebon.

Sunda Kalapa was located at the mouth of a large river that emptied into the Jakarta Bay. The largest river running through Jakarta would make it the Ciliwung, which once carried traders and their wares to Sunda Kalapa. The seaport was once the hub of economic activities, attracting many merchants from foreign ports.

Tome Pires recorded that Sunda Kalapa produced 1,000 bahar (one bahar equals 400 pounds) while it exported gold, vegetables, cows, pigs, goats, buffaloes, fruit and a wine variety to Malacca. The record also mentioned that Sunda Kalapa loaded 10 junks of rice annually.

Barros, another Portuguese, mentioned that the Pajajaran kingdom counted 100,000 people. Fifty thousand of them lived in the city of Pajajaran while every port including Sunda Kalapa had a population of 10,000 people.

Sunda Kalapa was conquered by Moslems under the leadership of Fatahilla on June 22, 1527. From then on the seaport was called Jayakarta, meaning "perfect victory". Its social structure, economy and culture came under the strong influence of Islam.

Jayakarta, under Fatahilla, was entrenched by small rivers in the north, south and west, while the main river, the Ciliwung, flowed in the east. Jayakarta, according to the Dutch who arrived in 1596, was fenced off by a bamboo barrier. The bamboo barrier was changed into one of concrete during the reign of prince Jayakarta Wijayakrama.

Jayakarta fell to Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the governor general of the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, on May 30, 1619. The name Jayakarta became Batavia as suggested by van Raay, one of the members of the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie. It was formally baptized Batavia under the order of Heeren XVIII in 1621. Coen himself wanted to name the capital Nieuw Hoorn after his birth place in north Holland. Since 1619, governor general Coen began to systematically develop Batavia.

He designed Batavia in the mode of an entrenched city. The Dutch had a penchant to build Batavia in the same image of their cities back home. Cities and a maze of canals and bridges, built in an orderly manner.

A map made in the year 1619 shows that the colonial government started to dig canals east of the Ciliwung River in the neighborhood of the capital's center. The city map and its canals depicting neat and orderly city planning was completed by van der Parra in 1770.

There is another reason behind the new city design. Next to building Batavia in the same style of Dutch towns, a second reason disclosed a closer affinity with defense and security. The third reason could well be to avert floods, already a major problem in those days. A picture taken in 1872 takes away any doubts in that respect. In the picture, the Harmonie neighborhood (Jl. Majapahit) was inundated by Ciliwung excess water. The canals were a solution to flooding in the city. What would have happened if no canals had been built at all?

Devastation

Jakarta made a wet entry into 1996 and was given a wet reception when floods in February and March submerged half of the city. Panic followed. Who was to blame? A scapegoat had to be found.

Heavy building in the highlands of West Java -- Bogor, Puncak and Cianjur -- have all but robbed the capital of its water catchment sites. Too many forests have been felled for the sake of national development. South Jakarta, once a landscape filled with rubber plantations starting from Pondok Gede, Kalibata, Cipete until Serpong, covered a wide area in the region.

The rubber trees were still part of the landscape until 1960. A few tree clumps are left now in the yard of the Bata shoe factory in Kalibata and in the Serpong area.

Under Dutch colonial rule, many reservoirs were built in South Jakarta to catch floodwater. Reservoirs were located in the region of Sawangan, Pamulang and in Depok. Few basins can still be observed in Pamulang and the University of Indonesia campus in Depok. Most of the reservoirs though made way for new housing complexes. As for the canals built by king Purnawarman, they disappeared with time and those built by the colonial government have lapsed into a dilapidated state. The aforementioned are clearly reasons why Jakarta's flood areas spread further each year.