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gain, thousands of Jakartans had to return to temporary shelters on Wednesday as floodwaters inundated their houses again. Many had not even finished cleaning up after the previous floods. Heavy rain in the north of the city resulted in yet more flooding on Thursday.

Of course in such an unfortunate situation, helping the flood victims should become the highest priority for all relevant parties, including the Jakarta administration, which must guarantee that the victims have their daily basic needs met.

They have experienced a similar predicament at least three times in recent weeks.

However, both the city and the central government need to formulate the much needed post-flood projects, with the hope that the same situation does not reoccur, or can at least be reduced, in the coming years.

As usual, when widespread flooding occurs, people tend to be enthusiastic about solving the problems because they can witness the great impact of the disaster. Jakarta Governor Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo carried out '€œshuttle diplomacy'€ to meet leaders of the neighboring cities in Bogor and Tangerang, as well as those in the West Java and Banten provincial levels to seek joint efforts to mitigate the floods.

The most important thing, however, is how the relevant agencies maintain their resolve so that their motivation does not fade away along with the receding floodwaters.

Actually, there have been many flood mitigation projects in place, including those promised by Jokowi in his election campaign: constructing water reservoirs in all subdistricts across the city, developing large water reservoirs in northern areas to reduce the burden on the Ciliwung River, establishing a joint authority to manage rivers flowing through different areas and a comprehensive upgrade of the drainage system to ease rainwater flowing into rivers and canals.

Other projects include the development of deep-tunnels and the giant seawall along the northern coast of the city, river dredging, connecting the West Flood Canal and East Flood Canal and renovating the existing small lakes and reservoirs.

Therefore, both levels of government should take concrete measures to select the plans they believe could immediately be implemented and could significantly tame next year'€™s flooding.

The city has a great opportunity to develop better projects with this year'€™s allocation of some Rp 5.1 trillion (US$417 million) for flood mitigation, about double the amount of the previous year'€™s figure of Rp 2.5 trillion

Obviously, it is impossible to free Jakarta from annual flooding in the next few years due to various reasons, but the city needs to set a target on how long it can mitigate the flooding '€” and learn from other cities similarly exposed to floods.