Recommendations for Improved Transboundary Flood and River Governance in the Urban Ciliwung River Basin, Indonesia

Description

The Ciliwung River is one of the major rivers that passes through Indonesia’s capital city Jakarta. The basin is highly urbanised, and has undergone significant structural management, especially in the downstream reaches. The basin, however, experiences flooding on a frequent basis, which has had devastating impacts on the city of Jakarta and its residents. Severe flooding in January 2020 was reported to have resulted in 66 fatalities, and the displacement of 36,000 people. Studies have identified that a key issue in the Ciliwung is ineffective basin governance. The project Mitigating hydrometeorological hazard impacts through improved transboundary river management in the Ciliwung River Basin sought to develop plans to improve the river’s governance to enable effective flood management. The project first identified the primary challenges facing river governance. It then sought to develop recommendations for how river governance could be improved. The project adopted an interdisciplinary and holistic approach to the investigation, and applied a transboundary river management lens, which has not been widely considered in a within-country context. The recommendations represent the culmination of the project and were developed based on a range of inputs including systematic literature reviews, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with key basin stakeholders. Respondents were selected for their expertise, and included key government departments and agencies who were project partners. The governance challenges identified were that current governance arrangements are fragmented, key actors commonly work independently, local governments often lack the capacity to implement their flood management responsibilities, and while there are integrated arrangements for water management, flood management is not well integrated within this. Recommendations are to clarifying roles and responsibilities, to integrate flood management into water management policy, to develop synergies between local and national policies regulations and planning, and to improve data access, among others.

Period	15 Mar 2023
Event title	International Conference on Building Resilience in Tropical Agro-Ecosystems 2023
Event type	Conference
Location	Colombo, Sri LankaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International