Joint action urged for Indonesia's water woes

UNESCO has called for an integrated approach to Indonesia's problems of flooding and contamination of the water supply. During a workshop organized by the Sustainable Water Management Improves Tomorrow’s Cities Health group (Switch), Hubert Gijzen, director of Unesco’s Jakarta office, said the country had prioritized water crises in the past, but only “in an ad-hoc, incident-driven way. For instance, when it floods, suddenly everybody’s concerned about flooding. What we typically do is just channel the water as quickly as possible to the sea.”

“If we think of a clever solution, then it might be useful to keep water on the land and to retain it, allow it to recharge the aquifer so that we wouldn’t have land subsidence and we’d also have a sustainable water supply in the dry season,” he said, as quoted by The Jakarta Globe.

Indonesian cities regularly experience seasonal flooding during the rainy season and water shortages during the dry season. Reports of contamination by pathogens such as E. coli bacteria are also common.

Switch project manager Carol Howe said water issues were never discussed among different levels of government despite the fact that several different sectors were connected to the issue. She said different governmental departments never met to “really discuss water issues because, basically, they all have different goals.”

Agoes Widjanarko, secretary general of the Public Works Ministry, said the ministry worked with two major partners — the State Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry of Forestry — in conservation efforts such as protecting critical river. “We do not just deal with physical issues, but also with the ‘software,’ which is ensuring water sustainability, including ways to encourage people to preserve water themselves,” Agoes said.