Jakarta Threatened To Sink, Government Regulates Groundwater Use

Acting Head (Plt) Head of the Geological Agency of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Muhammad Wafid. (Photo: Maria Trisnawati/VOI)

JAKARTA - The government through the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources issued Decree of the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Number 291.K/GL.01/MEM.G/2023 concerning the Standard for Implementing Approval for Groundwater Use. Controlling the use of groundwater is a regulation aimed at ensuring that groundwater can be used continuously for various purposes.

"By controlling its use, this groundwater still has a function to protect the environment, such as preventing land subsidence or subsidence in sea water," said Acting Head of the Geological Agency of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Muhammad Wafid, quoted on Saturday, November 11.

Wafid revealed that groundwater control efforts must be carried out, thus allowing the process of restoring groundwater levels and slowing the rate of land subsidence.

"These two things are indications of the success of groundwater management," said Wafid. He gave an example, in the Jakarta Homeland Basin, efforts have been made to monitor groundwater and land subsidence since 2014 through the establishment of the Groundwater Conservation Center (BKAT), which is an UPT under the Center for Groundwater and Environmental Management Geology, Geological Agency, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

Groundwater monitoring is carried out at 220 locations each year, both at monitoring wells, production wells, and excavation wells, in the form of groundwater facial measurement activities and analysis of groundwater physics properties. One of the goals of groundwater monitoring activities is to evaluate groundwater extraction control as part of granting permission for groundwater exploitation which is poured in the form of the Groundwater Conservation Zone Map.

Wafid said the measurement during the 2015-2022 period in the Jakarta Soil Basin area showed a land decline rate of between 0.04 and 6.30 cm per year.

This shows a decline in land compared to 1997 to 2005 where the rate of land subsidence is between 1-10 cm per year to 15-20 cm per year.

"The suspicion of land subsidence was also observed at the manual monitoring well at the location of the Tanah Air Conservation Office on Jalan Tongkol, North Jakarta," added Wafid.

Controlling the use of ground water is one of the underlying decisions of the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Number 291.K/GL.01/MEM.G/2023. However, Wafid reiterated that the licensed people (households) are households with a use of ground water of more than 100 m3 per month.

"Don't worry, most households in Indonesia do not require permission (use of ground water), because the average use is only 20-30 m3 per month, far below 100 cubic meters per month. 100 m3 of water is equivalent to 200 times filling water reservoirs with a volume of 500 liters or equivalent to filling 5,000 gallons of 20 liters of volume," concluded Wafid.