The country is on the verge of experiencing a water crisis due to the continued destruction of the environment and rapid population growth, water experts and governmental officials say.
"Java and Bali will experience shortages of 134 billion and 27.6 billion cubic meters, respectively, of fresh water by 2015," Sutopo Purwo Nugroho of the Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) said during a seminar in Jakarta on Wednesday. "Sulawesi and East Nusa Tenggara's deficits will stand at 42.5 billion and 4.5 billion cubic meters, respectively."
The alarming rate of deforestation and the country's rapid population growth will continue to adversely affect water resources, he said.
"Irreversible deforestation has played a huge role in climate change, which will inevitably have an impact on water catchment areas or resources, such as rivers and lakes."
Sutopo said Indonesia's forests were disappearing faster than those in any other part of the world, with an area of rainforest the size of a football field destroyed every 12 seconds.
Population growth, he said, was a particularly problematic issue in Java, with growth rates reaching 1.53 percent per year and a population density of 1,413 people per square kilometer.
"The government must increase its water production capacity to accommodate the ever-increasing population of Java," Sutopo said.
Dr. Gadis Sri Haryani of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences said changes in average annual precipitation and potential evaporation were crucial factors that should be considered when saving water resources. "One of the effects is that the dry seasons will be longer, which means there won't be enough rainwater absorbed in catchment areas. At the same time, a definite temperature rise will speed up evaporation, and this will seriously reduce the water supply available in reservoirs, lakes and rivers," she said.
Also, continued environmental degradation resulted in the deterioration of many water resources on islands such as Kalimantan and Sumatra, which are generally considered to have abundant fresh water reserves.
However, some areas face shortages, such as Tabalong regency in South Kalimantan, where more than 200,000 people are now in dire need of fresh water.
A state-owned water company (PDAM) official in Tabalong says coal mining along the Tabalong River coupled with deforestation on a massive scale had seriously damaged the river basin and polluted the water.
"We are really concerned about the state of the environment there. I ask the central government to help solve the problem immediately," he added.
The official said there were 10 other regencies, including Balangan, whose residents depended on water from the Tabalong River.
Due to the intensive resource exploitation there, the river always overflows and floods residential areas during the rainy season, while it dries up in the dry season. As a consequence, water supply to the Tabalong area is constantly interrupted.
Indonesia has 535 conservation areas, covering a total area of 28.2 million hectares. All are designated as preservation areas for fresh water resources under a 2004 law.
The National Water Utilities Association of Indonesia says the country's potential raw water supply rate is 9.8 million liters per second, but water companies can channel only two million liters per second to their eight million customers across the country due to interruptions and water loss. (tsy)
