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Jakarta's ecological crisis fails to sink in By John Aglionby in Jakarta Published: July 13 2009 19:27 | Last updated: July 13 2009 19:27 Wati Suka's house in the Kamal Muara district of Jakarta is a barometer for an environmental crisis enveloping the Indonesian capital that an increasing number of its 10m residents are learning about first-hand. "In the 1970s and '80s we used to have to raise the house about 30cm every eight years or so because the land was sinking so much," Mrs Wati says as she fries chicken to sell in her roadside food stall. "Now [raisings] are more frequent. We last did it in 2003 and I'd like to do it again this year if we can save enough money." Few places in Jakarta are sinking as fast as Kamal Muara but that could change because most residents are contributing to the subsidence's main cause: extracting groundwater. Only 10 per cent of the city is connected to the piped water supply and just 2 per cent is on a sewerage system. Slow as it may appear to the untrained eye, Hongjoo Hahm, an infrastructure specialist at the World Bank in Jakarta, says it is hard to overstate the emergency. "I don't know of another city [in the world] that has a sinking problem because of groundwater extraction to the extent that Jakarta does," he says. Subsidence is just one of several water-related crises Jakarta is facing that are combining to make severe flooding increasingly frequent. Unregulated population growth and associated construction are devouring crucial green spaces. Jakarta has less than half the undeveloped land called for in the city's master plan. Half a million squatters also live along the city's riverbanks and around its reservoirs, clogging them with 4,000 cubic metres of rubbish and human waste a day. Then there are the tidal surges that inundate northern neighbourhoods a couple of times a month, and climate change, which is causing sea levels to rise and more frequent extreme weather events. "Jakarta is under attack from the sea, the land and the air," says Budi Widiantoro, the head of the city's public works office. "We have no choice but to act decisively." The situation is bad enough that Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, last month began a project to offer Jakarta residents a severe flood microinsurance programme, the world's first such scheme. The need to "act decisively" sank in after a quarter of the city - affecting 2.6m residents, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - was hit by a 3m-deep flood in early 2007. The flood was triggered by a major tidal surge that occurs on average every 18.6 years and exceptionally heavy rain. Experts suggest that fewer than a quarter of the victims would have been affected if their recommendations had been adopted. These include building canals and other flood-control measures, changing a culture that considers waterways as rubbish dumps and, most significantly, addressing the subsidence. Mr Hahm says that unless Mr Budi's "decisive action" is realised, the presidential palace, which is 5.5km from the sea, "will become a seafront property" when the next major surge occurs in 2025. Unfortunately for Jakartans, implementing the needed measures is proving difficult. The city has this year raised groundwater extraction fees for the first time since 1999, by almost 16 times for households and six times for businesses. Experts welcomed the move but doubt its efficacy because piped water is still very scarce and more expensive. Then there is the East Jakarta Flood Canal. What was originally due to be a 20km-long state-of-the-art channel by December is currently a series of holes due to the authorities' inability to secure the land from recalcitrant owners. Moving the squatters, many who have lived on the riverbanks for decades, is expected to be an explosive issue, although city officials are touting a plan to build low-cost housing for 100,000 families. Weak law enforcement is another challenge. High-rise building developers continue to defy regulations and drill bores more than 100m into the ground to extract water. The groundwater extraction is triggering problems beyond subsidence, notably saltwater intrusion, which in turn is leading to corroding pipes and dirty groundwater. Jimmy Juwana, a sustainable development expert at Jakarta's Trisakti University, estimates it would cost several billion dollars to "fix" the city if everything was prioritised now, but sees only a fraction of the required funds in relevant budgets. "It will probably take a major disaster for the government to wake up to the severity of the problem," he says. "If we don't spend the money now the bill will be many times higher in a couple of decades."
