Getting To Know The Bribin Underground Dam, A Solution To Overcoming Drought In Gunung Kidul

Illustration (Photo: Instagram @kemenpupr)

JAKARTA - Today, Tuesday, March 30, the Ministry of PUPR's social media uploaded an illustration of the Bribin Cave's Underground River Dam (BSBT), also known as the Bribin Dam.

This dam is useful for irrigation for residents in Gunung Kidul Regency, Yogyakarta.

In the upload, it was stated that the Bribin Dam is an underground dam owned by Indonesia.

To get to the location of the dam, we have to use an elevator to go underground with a depth of about 100 meters.

The dam, which was built in 2004 in cooperation with Indonesia and Germany, is equipped with a drilling machine with a diameter of 2.49 meters, a turbine, and 4 pump units.

This dam works by damming the water in the underground cave of Bribin which is channeled to the surface to be collected into the reservoir.

The water is then channeled to the villages around the dam to meet the needs of the villagers.

The existence of the Bribin Underground Dam is one solution to overcome the drought that often occurs in Gunung Kidul.

Launching the PUPR website, the construction of this dam uses a budget of IDR 38 billion.

The construction of this project involves other agencies such as the Ministry of Public Works (PUPR), Batan, Yogyakarta Province, and the German government.

The Yogyakarta Provincial Raw Water Development Project Commitment Officer, Sahrial said, the technology used for the Bribin project was the first in the world.

In the future, if this technological engineering is successfully applied in the Bribin PSBT, it is likely to be applied to similar projects in other regions in Indonesia.

He explained, from Bribin Cave, the underground river water will be flowed through pipes with a gravity system to meet the needs of the people of Gunung Kidul who are prone to water.

Sahrial explained the raw water from Bribin Cave is intended for 97 thousand people spread across 13 villages and 5 districts.

With a water discharge capacity of 800 liters per second, only 10 percent is channeled through the piping system. The rest is allowed to flow for the benefit of the downstream community.

Apart from being intended for raw water supply, this underground water is also used for irrigation and power generation purposes.

For this reason, it is necessary to strive for and improve the development of groundwater and underground river water through various stages of Study, Detailed Planning, and construction.

With the use of underground water sources under the river (Bribin Cave) by the people of Gunung Kidul, it is hoped that it will be able to meet the needs of raw water problems which have been difficult to obtain, especially in the Semanu District area.