Floods hit parts of Jakarta on Saturday, Feb 20, 2021.
The intense rain began on the evening and continued through the day, leading to parts of the Jakarta being submerged.
We all knew that the climate change-driven global warming, the sinking city, a lack of green space, and extreme rainfall were the main factors behind repeated severe flooding across Greater Jakarta. Furthermore, geographically Jakarta lies in a low, flat-basin, multiple flood-plain and particularly below sea level in the northern area. From those mentioned factors we were able to produce floods probability map to mitigate the risk of flooding. However, there was a unique insight from Mr. Tambunan (2017). He said that the potential prone area was not similar with the actual prone area.
From this map, I can say that the actual flood in Jakarta is more driven by local basin flood plain. Though, the northern area is an exception because the sea level is rising while the area is sinking.
We knew that Jakarta was built on top of a low-flat basin which is prone to floods. Moreover, parts of the city were marsh or flood plain before later changed by concrete jungle. You can find a place called “Rawa-something” in fact that Rawa means marsh or swamp in Bahasa Indonesia.
For example, we tried to assess an area in Jakarta that repeatedly hit by floods. As you can see on the picture below, the blue shade area is the presumably the flood plain in Kampung Melayu. Hence, this area will be flooded by water when the extreme rainy season hits Jakarta.
In the same way, we can see the flood in Kemang area, South Jakarta which caused by flood-plain and localized basin.
In the end, While the Jakarta flood could be the accumulation of all possible causes, we can mitigate the risk by dividing into two categories. The long-term mitigation is related to climate policy and the short-term mitigation is related to local basin handling.
Better check the local basin before buying a new house in Jakarta, cheers!