The Ministry Of Transportation Will Develop A Disaster Early Warning System In The Watershed Area
JAKARTA - The Ministry of Forestry (Kemenhut) will develop an early warning system to monitor potential disasters in the Watershed (DAS) as a mitigation measure.
"With collaboration between the Ministry of Forestry, then BMKG, and the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), God willing, we can predict that this watershed has the potential for large floods to occur, which here are small," said Deputy Minister of Forestry (Wamenhut) Rohmat Marzuki at a press conference in Jakarta on Friday, November 28.
"Hopefully later with the application, people can see, then we can also give an early warning to the local government, to the sub-district head, to the village head who has a risk to the flood," he said.
With the early warning system application, he said, conditions for various watersheds in Indonesia will be monitored. It is equipped with a mapping of upstream areas and land cover conditions as well as sedimentation deposits in the rivers.
The data will be combined with information from the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) for rainfall conditions, as well as BNPB for warnings to the public.
The Deputy Minister of Transportation emphasized that the flooding that occurred in a number of areas of Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra, the majority were in other Use Areas (APL) whose use was under the local government.
Regarding the issue of land conversion and reduced water catchment areas in watersheds in flood-affected areas, the Deputy Minister of Transportation reminded that this issue is a shared responsibility.
"For example, in the authority of the local government, how can other use areas, for example agriculture, not turn into settlements or then industrial estates or then villas, for example, like at the top of Bogor. So this must be our shared responsibility," said the Deputy Minister of Forestry. Rohmat.
According to the mapping of the Ministry of Transportation, flooding occurred in three provinces in Sumatra on the Krueng Geukuh watershed, Krueng Pasee watershed, Krueng Keureto watershed for the Aceh region. Most areas on the watershed are dominated by APL.
The same thing was also found in North Sumatra with the Kolang watershed, Sibuluan watershed, Aek Pandan watershed, Badiri watershed, and Garoga watershed. Meanwhile, in West Sumatra in the Anai watershed, Antokan, Banda Gadang, Masang Kanan, Masang Kir, and Ulakan Tapis.