annual expected urban flood damage in
“Jakarta is a bowl, and the bowl is sinking,”
India alone is 6.4 billion US$. Interestingly
said Fook Chuan Eng, senior water and
majority of the Indian cities are vulnerable
sanitation specialist with the World Bank,
to the river floods and are less resilient to
who
the flood hazards due to climate change.
mitigation project for the city. The channels
Number of cities like Jakarta is subsiding
of the Ciliwung and other rivers are sinking.
due to excess withdrawal of groundwater
The entire sprawl of Jakarta’s north coast –
which increases their vulnerability to the
flood. In India, Kolkata is also facing the
similar threat. The unplanned urban growth
is causing severe toll on nature which is
affecting adversely to large number of
people.
fishing
oversees
a
ports,
$189
million
boatyards,
flood
markets,
warehouses, fish farms, crowded slums and
exclusive gated communities – it’s all
sinking. Even the 40-year-old seawall that is
supposed to keep the Java Sea from
inundating the Indonesian capital is sinking.
Unfortunately, it affects more to
Just inside the seawall sits the Muara Baru
the poor than the rich.
kampong, or village, that is home to more
NEWS
Jakarta, the Sinking City
from
a
volcano
below
sea
level,
and
residents
like
Rahmawati, a mother of two small children,
JAKARTA, Indonesia – The Ciliwung River
flows
than 100,000 people. It is now at least 6 feet
south
of the
Indonesian capital, Jakarta. It passes through
the heart of one of the world’s most densely
populated cities but could not reach Jakarta
Bay in its final stretch 1.5 km or so of its
course, because the river would have to flow
uphill to reach the bay. The same is true for
the rest of the half-dozen sewage-choked
gaze upward from their front stoops to view
the sea. “When there’s a high tide, the ships
float almost at the same height as the
seawall – we can see the ships from here,”
said Rahmawati. Flooding from overflowing
rivers and canals in the area is at least an
annual event that forces Rahmawati and the
rest of the kampong to evacuate to public
buildings nearby.
rivers that wind through central Jakarta.
The cause of Jakarta’s sinking is subsidence
Unable to defy gravity, they’ve been
due to over extraction of groundwater. The
redirected to canals that drain into the sea.
problem is particularly acute in Jakarta
The reason is that Greater Jakarta, an
because most of its millions of residents
agglomeration of 28 million people, sits on a
suck water through wells that tap shallow
swampy plain that has sunk 13 feet (4
underground aquifers. Wells also provide
meters) over the past three decades.
2
Integrated River Basin Management Society