ASIATODAY.ID, JAKARTA – The city of Jakarta is very vulnerable to climate change. Because geographically, the city is located on the coast and is the estuary of large rivers.
According to a senior researcher from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Agus Heri Purnomo, coastal communities are the group most at risk, where the climate crisis has pushed sea levels to rise.
“Coastal communities must deal with the existing impacts. Unfortunately, not all of the adaptations that have been made have been successful. So there needs to be intervention from the government,” said Agus in his statement, Thursday, May 30 2024.
He emphasized the importance of more serious mitigation and adaptation efforts from the relevant government. According to him, mitigation efforts such as repairing flood drainage channels and reforestation are not enough to anticipate various threats due to climate change.
“There are still problems that need to be faced and these are the things that need to be fixed,” said Agus.
Agus said the government needs to intervene in a number of projects such as river digging or river normalization, road raising, as well as relevant outreach so that people are better prepared to face climate change.
“The community also needs a warning system, such as raising embankments. Another example of action is that the government can reduce the price of fuel oil, as well as holding training in making bricks from green mussels,” said Agus.
He added that the oscillations could have occurred over a period of 100 or 200 years. The impacts include, for example, salt or sea water intrusion, prolonged drought, floods caused by rain or sea tides.
For example, in the Rorotan or Marunda areas, in 2007 it was flooded for days with a height of 70 to 80 centimeters.
“For normal flooding, it takes 1 to 3 hours for it to recede. “This is different from what happened in Rorotan or Marunda, which were flooded for days, so the people had to be evacuated,” he said.
Meanwhile, Researcher at the BRIN Center for Climate and Atmospheric Research, Widodo Setiyo Pranowo, added that the climate vulnerability seen in the city of Jakarta is very high. There are many beach buildings, and the slope of the beach ranges from low, medium to high.
“After looking at the slope of the beach, you can see other data, namely the tidal range or the difference between the highest and lowest sea levels. The tidal wave in Jakarta Bay is moderate.
“With a longer pole, it will produce a gradient in elevation and produce strong currents,” he said.
According to him, there is a tidal indicator per year, namely 0.85 to 0.879 meters, seen from the waves in Jakarta Bay which reach 40 centimeters high. Therefore, high and medium coastline changes are quite varied.
“Along the north coast of Jakarta Bay to the west, the index is low, while in the middle position it is low to moderate. Then from the center towards the east it gets higher,” explained Widodo. (ATN)
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