Jakarta Braces for Flood as City Rivers Cannot Contain Excess Water

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Jakarta Water Resources Agency Head Juaini Yusuf, admitted that the city administration has much to do on mitigating flood, such as figuring out how to contain 1,032 cubic meters of water per second that exceeds the capacity of some of the rivers in the capital.

Juaini referred to the water volume data recorded during the heavy downpour earlier this year, which at that time, Jakarta's rivers could only store 2,357 cubic meters of water per second. Whereas, the water discharged during the flood in January 2020 reached 3,389 cubic meters per second.

"So the remaining water discharge that must be held amounted to 1,032 cubic meters per second," said Juaini in a recording of a meeting on flood mitigation published on Jakarta administration's YouTube channel on Wednesday, August 5, 2020.

Among the efforts to contain the excess water was building reservoirs, lakes, or dams, as well as vertical drainage.

Juaini mentioned that several river segments such as Ciliwung could only store 570 cubic meters of water per second, while during the flood in January 2020, the water volume was recorded to be at 749 cubic meters per second. "So the water overflowed from the river banks in several areas," Juaini said.

The city administration was working on several infrastructure programs to contain floodings, such as building polders, repairing water pumps, building reservoirs, and increasing the river capacity and water channels.

Juaini added that Jakarta was also constructing a coastal safety embankment, flood management information system which consisted of a stream gauge to measure the water discharge, rain gauge, and CCTV.

IMAM HAMDI