The DKI Provincial Government's Recognition About Vertical Drainage That Is Not Solutive To Overcome Floods

JAKARTA - In the rainy season in 2018, the Governor of DKI Jakarta Anies Baswedan once anticipated the construction of vertical infiltration or drainage wells to overcome rainwater that has not been inundated for a long time causing flooding. However, infiltration wells are not the main solution for flood prevention.

The construction of infiltration wells is still being carried out by a number of Regional Work Units (SKPD), such as the Water Resources Service (SDA), the Information and Energy Agency (PE) and the Bina Marga Office.

Throughout 2019, the PE Agency is targeting the construction of 1,330 absorption wells. However, until now, there are still about 500 works.

"We just started working in October, the auction process will be finished in October. Hopefully we will do more work next year," said Plt Head of DKI PE Department Ricki Marojahan to VOI, Thursday, December 19.

According to Ricki, the main purpose of making infiltration wells is not overcoming floods. He said, infiltration wells have the main objective for groundwater conservation. So, flood prevention is just a bonus from making the drainage.

"Indeed, the main function is groundwater conservation. Secondly, we hope that with puddles, it can be quickly absorbed. But the bonus is to accelerate water infiltration into the ground," said Ricki.

Ricki said that the new infiltration wells could really be a solution for the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government to cope with flooding if there were a lot of them. The count, reached more than one million infiltration wells.

"Hence, the community must also be involved in making their own infiltration wells," he said.

Likewise, Head of SDA Juaini also acknowledged that DKI Pemprov cannot rely solely on infiltration wells to cope with flooding.

Juaini said, another solution for flood prevention is cleaning the waterways. The proof is, in several locations with infiltration wells, there are still puddles due to rain a few days ago.

"The vertical drainage is to reduce the amount of water in the surface and the road so that it can also be stored, not directly running to the road or channel. However, because there are many utility cables in the channel, it will interfere with the process of getting water into the channel," he explained.

Until now, the construction of absorption wells held by the SDA Agency has reached 1,020 units. This number exceeds the initial target of a thousand.

"We are still adding drainage because we don't have all of our 1 million plans full. So at the beginning of the year we will continue making vertical drainage," said Juaini.

For information, on November 11, 2018, Anies once expressed his views in alleviating the flood problem. According to him, the solution is simply to return the rainwater back to the ground, or create infiltration.

So, Anies plans to immediately make infiltration land by inviting DKI residents in each region to provide land that is ready to absorb rainwater.

"If every time we put rainwater into the hole in our land house, then we will not send rainwater out and God willing, it will not produce floods. So I invite all to join this movement, we want to massively build vertical drainage wells in our homes, "said Anies.