Floods be dammed: City to collect excess rainwater

Floods be dammed: City to collect excess rainwater


The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Jakarta | Mon, December 02 2013, 10:15 AM


The city administration is appropriating plots of land in East Jakarta to be developed into dams and reservoirs to collect rainwater as an integral part of the efforts to mitigate flooding in the capital.

The dams and reservoirs will be on Jl. Madrasah Bambu Apus, Jl. Dogol in Pondok Bambu, Jl. Sejuk in Cipayung, Jl. Penggilingan in Cakung, Jl. Penganten Ali in Ciracas and Jl. Cibubur in Cibubur.

The land at all six locations has been already cleared and all landowners have agreed to the compensation offered by the city administration, beritajakarta.com reported on Saturday.

Head of the utility network logistics section at the Public Works Agency, Eddy Sudrajat, said all landowners would be paid Rp 1.8 million (US$157) per square-meter in accordance with the taxable value of property (NJOP) rate in the municipality.

“The city administration has allocated Rp 80 billion to purchase the six large plots of land while the development of the dams and reservoirs will start in January,” he said.

He explained that the project had referred to gubernatorial decrees No. 1.083/2013 and No. 1.566/2013 on the development of dams and reservoirs in the city.

Eddy further said that besides East Jakarta, the city administration would also develop a 2,143 square-meter reservoir and a 8,700 square-meter one, both in Pondok Labu and Jagakarsa, South Jakarta.

“The Building and Supervisory Agency [P2P] is negotiating with landowners in the two locations.”

The city administration is in the midst of a dredging project in seven rivers and a re-greening program in 76 dams and reservoirs, including two in Pluit, North Jakarta, and Ria-Rio in East Jakarta.

As part of its strategy to fight flooding, the city administration is also making percolation pits and preparing a new gubernatorial decree that would require all buildings in the city to have their own pool to intercept rainwater during the rainy season.

Besides those projects, the city administration, in cooperation with the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) and the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), is planning to carry out weather engineering to relocate clouds.

“All these efforts are aimed at preventing rainwater from inundating the city during the rainy season,” said Eddy.

He also said the Public Works Agency had also planned to reinvigorate the inter-region Ciliwung Authority to enhance coordination and cooperation among regions that Ciliwung River passed through to better control the river’s flow.

“The Ciliwung authority will coordinate with the Cianjur and Bogor administrations to maintain Puncak as a conservation area and clear the area of illegal buildings. Doing so would help hold rain water during the rainy season and reduce the river’s flow and current during the rainy season,” he said.

Governor Joko “Jowoki” Widodo revealed recently his administration had also planned to develop a giant sea wall along the North Jakarta coast to allow the pumping of water from the rivers into the sea. “We [the city administration and the central government] will set up a national capital integrated coastal development [NCICD] that will handle the megaproject,” he said when presenting his paper in a seminar on floods at the University of Indonesia in Depok.