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Worst tidal flooding in decade hurts Java's fish farmers
Fish and shrimp famers on the northern coast of Java are dealing with the aftermath of the worst tidal inundations in at least a decade, and more flooding is expected this month.
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An ocean wave floods a road near the northern coast of Pekalongan in Central Java on May 23. (ANTARA FOTO/Harviyan Perdana Putra)
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yaifullah Mahdi, 45, a fish farmer from Gresik, East Java, said he and his fellow smallholders had not expected to lose all of their fish after a tidal flood hit the northern coast of Java in May.
Mahdi and other villagers have been cultivating milkfish for years in fishponds near the coast in Pangkah Wetan village. Tidal floods had long been part of their lives, but this event was unprecedented.
“This is the largest we have had at least in a decade. Every year, tidal floods hit our area, but they have never been this high,” Mahdi told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
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Usually, deploying an additional protective fishnet was enough prevent fish from escaping the pond during tidal flooding, Mahdi said, but this year the entire area had been submerged, rendering such netting useless. He added that the flooding in his region had reached 2 meters, twice as high as what the fish farmers of the area were used to, and hence prepared for.
Almost 70 percent of some 2,900 hectares of fishponds in the village, owned by 604 households, were affected by this year’s tidal flooding, resulting in losses of more than Rp 15 billion to the farmers.
This month, Mahdi said, he and other villagers experienced another inundation, which readings showed was as high as the one in May.
