In one of the most complex urban environments on earth, we follow a Michigan Engineer into Jakarta's monsoon season where 21st century engineering lets people save themselves from rising waters - 140 characters at a time.
Flood report: Flooding reported in South and West Jakarta, closing a toll road.
From a distance, the profile of Jakarta’s vast skyscraped silhouette isn’t much different from other rapidly developing megacities around the world. But when you zoom in, its complex relationship between people, nature, infrastructure and technology is offering a unique learning opportunity through PetaJakarta.org. Like as in Jakarta, urbanization and climate change will continue to make flooding worse in other coastal cities. The way in which Jakarta’s residents and government are working together to combat the rising water has far reaching implications.
The giant metropolis sits in a delta with thirteen rivers and eleven kilometers of canals. One-hundred-year-old floodgates and increasing canalization of its main river only adds unpredictability to the city’s complex hydrology – and uncertainty for the people that live along the water’s edge. Unprecedented urbanization has led to a startling rate of land subsidence – the city is literally sinking between 5 - 20 cm each year. Simultaneously, the biggest seawall project on earth aims to shield its northern border from the encroaching ocean. “Ultimately there’s no real way for Jakarta to build itself out of out of the flooding problem,” says Etienne Turpin, co-director of PetaJakarta.org. “While we don’t pretend to solve the fact that Jakarta will flood during the monsoon, we address the secondary, fundamental problem of information. During an emergency situation the number one resource is information. By disseminating that information in a non-trivial and real time format, both the emergency management agency and residents of Jakarta can make better decisions and reduce risk.”
Michigan Civil Engineering graduate Frank Sedlar navigates muddy river bank area where residents were evicted and houses razed mere weeks ago in Jakarta, Indonesia
Construction worker takes measurements of the area. Behind him, a house was cut in half and its inside exposed during the “normalization” process in Jakarta. Residents were evicted and houses razed mere weeks ago here.
Kids play in the mud where houses used to be before they were leveled to make room for concrete walls of a canal that will encompass Ciliwung River in Jakarta.
Only a couple feet of concrete separates Java Sea from Jakarta. That meager barrier could give in at any point.
To reduce flooding in the city of Jakarta, Indonesian government is embarking on a controversial mission. They plan to build a giant sea wall off the coast of North Jakarta.
The 35km wall will cost up to US$40 billion over three decades. The project will include include reclaiming land for 17 new islands. The whole project will be shaped like a garuda, the mythical bird that is Indonesia’s national symbol.
New islands will have a mix of residential and industrial use.
Jakarta has become an economic powerhouse in Southeast Asia.
Flood report: Afternoon rains bring moderate flooding to South Jakarta
The sensory contrast between the flood-prone streets and the computerized control center at Jakarta’s Disaster Management Agency is impressive. Honking motorbikes and vocal vendors are replaced with a quiet concerto of ticking keystrokes and clicking computer mice. Aging infrastructure and oppressive humidity give way to modern offices and air conditioning. The analog chaos of the city is exchanged for an organized digital dashboard. Amazingly, PetaJakarta.org has found a way to bridge these two different worlds with a system that has been adopted by its crowd-sourced contributors and the government emergency responders.
BPBD DKI Jakarta is the governmental unit that synthesizes incoming data into prioritized disaster relief decisions. A three-by-seven meter digital monitor illuminates its mission control room where surveillance feeds and a plethora of incoming data is verified, validated, visualized and acted upon. Integrated into this dashboard is the PetaJakarta.org map. The map is a dynamic, real-time representation of user generated flood data coming from Twitter, Detik.com (a citizen journalism app) and Qlue (a government-sponsored citizen-reporting app).
During a flood, “the phone is ringing nonstop, yet there is a tense quietness about the office as people see the flooding evolve and travel downstream throughout the day,” says Frank Sedlar, U-M Civil Engineering alumnus and visiting researcher for PetaJakarta.org. “There is a very calm, calculated atmosphere in the room when it’s flooding.”
Flood report: Night rains swell rivers across Jakarta but water levels recede by noon.
The pavement is still wet from the overnight storms as we enter the informal riverside community of Kebon Pala, in Kampung Melayu. It’s so “informal” that it’s just a grey swatch on Google maps. But upon entering this narrow labyrinth overflowing with life, the word informal seems to belittle the lessons to be learned about how flood warnings flow through these communities. After spending the morning talking to residents, it becomes clear that information about flooding is as fluid as the river itself – illustrating the complexity of the information ecosystem involved in the PetaJakarta.org project.
After a winding series of hunch-based turns, the Ciliwung River came into view. Frank Sedlar, U-M Civil Engineering alumnus and visiting researcher for PetaJakarta.org, had found a spot we stopped at the day before on our rafting trip. However, today it was a different river. The rains from the night before raised the water enough to drown fifteen feet of shoreline. Flotillas of newly immersed trash churn in the intensified current. “I’m not sure we would have gone rafting if the river was like it is now,” says Frank.
Flood report: Heavy skies threaten Jakarta but precipitation fails to materialize.
The PetaJakarta.org team negotiate their footing along the steep embankment down to the inflatable rafts below. The deceivingly powerful, dark-brown water sweeps them down a river that has been put through a lot over the past four hundred years – and now it seems to be more rebellious than ever before. “People have tried to control where it goes, how high it can rise, played with its banks and have filled it with pollution – you get the sense that it’s kind of pushing back,” says Frank Sedlar, U-M Civil Engineering alumnus and PetaJakarta.org visiting researcher.
The Ciliwung is Jakarta’s central river, and due to increased runoff from intense urbanization, it has more water flowing down it than ever before. Simultaneously, the tactic of “Normalisasi” (turning the river into a concrete channel), has made its increased payload even more aggressive. The PetaJakarta.org team has set out to document the evolution of normalization sites using timelapse photos and GPS data. Utilizing the growing PetaJakarta.org datasets about flooding in the city, they’ll attempt to determine how normalization is changing flood patterns.
“Flooding doesn’t follow topographic lines here,” says Frank. “Whether it’s because garbage has clogged a floodgate, someone has cut the electricity at a pump house or canal walls have collapsed during the flood, it doesn’t simply flow downhill to the lowest points.”
