RI Asked To Learn From Japan To Overcome Land Reduction

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Director of the Rujak Center for Urban Studies Elisa Sutanudjaja said, Indonesia needs to learn from Japan to solve the problem of land subsidence, especially in the capital city of DKI Jakarta.

Elisa assessed that the problems related to land subsidence in Jakarta and Japan were no different. However, rivers in Japan are indeed bigger than those in the city of Jakarta.

"Tokyo also experienced very severe land subsidence, the level could be up to 4 meters in a period of 10-50 years. So once the decline can be up to 4 meters. Then what are they? There are several things that are similar (between Jakarta and Tokyo), for example, Tokyo both has a river like Jakarta. Even though the river in Jakarta is not as big as a river in Tokyo, the principle is the same," said Elisa in a virtual discussion on the Impact of Giant Sea Wall (GSW) on the North Java Beach Area, Friday, January 12.

"What they did for the first time began to make regulations regarding the use of water in buildings, then there began to be the latest regulations regarding pollution prevention at that time," he continued.

He added that Japan is also monitoring the use of ground water and moving industrial estates to other places.

"The last attempt that was made was to finally stop using well water for industry," said Elisa.

Until now, said Elisa, if there is a change of leadership in Japan, they no longer need to worry about the issue.

Because, with various efforts made, Japan only needs to carry out monitoring or monitoring.

"Finally, whenever there is a change in the application of their policies, they can track what happened. So, this is indeed one strategy (which can be done by Indonesia)," he added.

It is known that the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) will build a 1.6-kilometer-long coastal embankment and river estuary (km) in 2024. As for 2023, coastal embankments and river estuaries of 8.2 km have been built.

Director General of Water Resources of the Ministry of PUPR Bob Arthur Lambogia said that the construction of coastal embankments and river estuaries had been carried out strategically since 2020.

The person in charge of the project is divided into two, namely by the central government through the Ministry of PUPR and the Provincial Government (Pemprov) of DKI Jakarta.

"For 2024, the Ministry of PUPR is working on 1,664 meters (shore embankments) and one retention pond unit at Kamal Muara Dadap Beach and Muara Sungai Kali Dadap River, which is 1.6 km. This is the completion of the agreement we have made with the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government for the construction of this coastal embankment," said Bob at the National Seminar Giant Sea Wall in Central Jakarta, Wednesday, January 10.

Bob said, overall the total length of the coastline and river estuary as well as the coast of Jakarta reached 120 km.

Of these, based on the details of the 2016 NCICD design, the coastline length and the critical river estuary are 46.2 km long.

"The review is 38 km long and in 2014-2019 the construction of coastal embankments and river estuaries has been carried out by the central government, provincial governments and private parties along 13 km, so that there are coastlines and river estuaries which are still said to be critical along 25 km," he said.