TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Jakarta homes in on creating green spaces to mitigate flooding
The Jakarta administration plans to create 55 new green spaces covering 271,653 square meters this year to help absorb runoff from the heavy rainstorms that have battered the city
Change Size
T
span>The Jakarta administration plans to create 55 new green spaces covering 271,653 square meters this year to help absorb runoff from the heavy rainstorms that have battered the city.
In Central Jakarta, the administration plans to build a 5,003-sq-m park in Rawasari subdistrict and a 900 sq m park in Harapan Mulya subdistrict, according to Mila Ananda, the head of the Central Jakarta Park and Forestry Agency. The agency is allocating Rp 1 billion (US$72,105) for the Rawasari park project and Rp 3.5 billion for the Harapan Mulya park project.
"Green spaces are a solution to mitigate flooding and the impacts of extreme rainfall," Mila told The Jakarta Post by phone on Tuesday. "We don't have records on the actual impacts, but floodwaters in those neighborhoods that have green spaces tend to recede faster than [areas] that don't."
Mila said parks had ecological functions that contributed to flood mitigation, water conservation and air quality improvement, as well as social functions like providing a public space that encouraged social interaction.
One example of the dual function of green spaces is Dupa Indah Park in Kebon Jeruk district, West Jakarta, which broke ground in August 2019 and opened in early January. The 800 sq m park has a basketball field, a playground, a wooden gazebo and other facilities. People generally visit the park at around 4:30 p.m.
"This park is meant to serve the public," park security officer Tutut Ariadi said on Monday. "It provides a place for people to interact with each other."
Residents from nearby communities also took shelter at the park during the widespread flooding on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
Jakarta and its satellite cities have since continued to see extreme rainfall that has caused flooding in many areas.
The records of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) shows that floods in January claimed 51 lives and displaced 27,971 people in Greater Jakarta. Another massive flood hit on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and displacing thousands.
Rujak Center for Urban Studies executive director Elisa Sutanudjaja said that the administration should focus on populous areas and establish at least one green space per community unit (RW).
"In this time of climate crisis, green spaces are important, given their ecological and social functions," Elisa told the Post by phone on Monday. "The city needs to make a combined effort to adapt [to climate change] and adopt green spaces that can provide a place for absorbing water."
She said that the administration should also consider counting green roofs — rooftop gardens — as green space, because they offered a similar ecological function.
The proportion of green space in the capital declined to 9.3 percent of its total area in 2009, from between 40 and 50 percent in the 1970s, according to a 2015 paper by Deden Rukmana, the head of the Community and Regional Planning Department at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University in the United States. The paper said that 1,287 hectares of green spaces were turned into commercial and residential developments in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta.
The Jakarta administration developed 48 green spaces last year that covered 271,156 sq m across East, South, North and West Jakarta.
Architecture lecturer Teguh Utomo Atmoko at the University of Indonesia said that the administration should not focus on only the number of new green spaces, but also their overall distribution. To reach its target, the administration should push property developers to allocate more of their land as green spaces, he added.
Law No. 26/2007 on spatial planning mandates the Jakarta administration to allocate 30 percent of the city's 7,659-square-kilometer area as green spaces, broken down into 20 percent under public management, like parks, and 10
percent under private management, like buildings or a residential yard.
The administration plans to develop 23 ha of green space every year to reach the minimum spatial coverage of 30 percent by 2030. This will be an uphill challenge, since green spaces comprised just 9.9 percent of the metropolitan area in January 2020.
"The [30 percent] proportion is modelled on the most liveable cities in the world," Teguh told the Post via text message on Monday. "If the proportion is lower than that, the city is likely to encounter ecological issues such as flooding, land subsidence and bad air quality, as well as sociocultural issues such as stress and depression," he said. (dfr)
