Minister PU relies on dams and boreholes to face the dry season

Minister PU Dody Hanggodo (PU Ministry)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Public Works (PU) has strengthened various steps to anticipate the potential for a long dry season or El Nino by optimizing water resources infrastructure, ranging from dams to boreholes.

This step is taken to maintain the availability of irrigation water, so that agricultural productivity and national food supply are maintained.

Minister PU Dody Hanggodo said that the development of water infrastructure has a strategic role in strengthening water resilience as well as supporting food security, especially during prolonged dry seasons and climate change.

"The PU Ministry continues to be committed to building and completing water management infrastructure, such as dams, dams, ponds to reservoirs in various regions," said Dody as quoted from a written statement, Tuesday, July 28.

The presence of this infrastructure is very important to support the availability of agricultural irrigation water, maintain land productivity and ensure that food supplies are maintained even in the face of drought or climate change challenges.

In addition to building new infrastructure, the Ministry of PU also optimizes the operation pattern of dams and irrigation networks so that water distribution continues to run efficiently during the dry season.

As part of the preparedness, the PU Ministry has activated 10,789 boreholes with a capacity of more than 114,000 cubic meters per second in various drought-prone areas.

This infrastructure is one of the mainstays for maintaining water availability, especially for agricultural land that has the potential to be affected by reduced rainfall.

Not only that, the PU Ministry also prepared various supporting equipment for quick handling in the field.

The equipment includes 125 mobile pumps, 921 alkon pumps, and 49 drilling machines that are ready to be deployed to the affected areas if needed.

Mitigation efforts are not only focused on providing infrastructure. The PU Ministry also conducts an inventory of drought-prone areas and educates the public on adaptation measures to face the dry season.

One of the innovations that continues to be encouraged is the application of Water-Saving Rice Irrigation (IPHA) technology which is considered capable of reducing water use in the agricultural sector without reducing crop productivity.

On the other hand, the development of various water resources infrastructure continues to be accelerated, ranging from dams, irrigation networks, groundwater irrigation networks (JIAT) to boreholes.

This step is expected to strengthen national water resilience in the long term while improving Indonesia's ability to deal with the impacts of climate change.

Currently, the PU Ministry manages 240 dams with a total storage capacity of 7.89 billion cubic meters that serve to support irrigation water needs, raw water to flood control.

There are also 601 springs and lakes with a total storage volume of around 135.59 billion cubic meters and more than 1,000 raw water reservoirs that also support the provision of water for the community and various productive sectors.