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Overview

Jakarta’s complex urban history, shaped by its geographical characteristics, colonial legacies and modernisation, lends a nuanced lens to explore the intersection of climate resilience and water knowledge. Urban development, driven by colonial and postcolonial policies, technological advancement and rapid urbanisation led to a fragmented and hierarchic physical and social structures of the city where local environmental customs are often dismissed. In one particular urban kampung, Kalibata Pulo (systematically categorised as a moderate slum), river which previously had social, communal, and ecological values is now sidelined, thus distinct ways of interacting with water have been uprooted. Regulations on the urban context, surrounding water management, sanitation and urban planning informed by the colonial government, not only manifested themselves through new technologies, policies, social and/or physical structures, but also through the notions of control over nature, progress, and the notion of city itself.  

Other than the challenge of the diverse ethnic groups as the impact of urbanisation, the colonial government was met by the concept of “kampung”, mostly populated by “the uneducated indigenous”, as a hurdle in the process of modernisation. “The modern” and “the city”, serves to bind the colonised people’s ways of thinking in a universalised Western paradigm, which tends to ignore or discredit local ways of understanding and explaining the world, as well as play a significant role in reshaping the locals’ water knowledge. Thus the word kampung is not only a term to indicate the physical space; it also carries  an imbalance in relations of power. This view of kampung and the “modern” was then continued in the postcolonial government where a massive scale project in “cleaning” the kampung was conducted, furthering the detachment between local agencies and existing policies which will be explored.  

Thus the word “kampung” is not only a term to indicate the physical space; it also carries an imbalance in relations of power.

As climate change amplifies the challenges of water management and flooding, revisiting local ways of being and knowledge systems is vital in developing sustainable urban solutions. Between various layers of water knowledge, memory of the location becomes a potential avenue of inquiry that is enabled by listening as a method, as perception of a physical space in the sense of urban planning may greatly differ from how the locals experience it daily. In the continuously contested space of the urban kampung, sound may highlight those different perceptions.  Sound itself is a potential rarely explored in Southeast Asia, a region that is arguably brimming with noise, especially in regards to its phenomenological value in the urban contexts (Colombijn 2007; 255-259). In the past four months, artists from Forum Lenteng conducted  fieldwork in Kalibata Pulo, particularly in RT  (Rukun Tetangga, neighbourhood association) 06 and RT 13 with various strategies of listening, such as through conducting interviews, field recording, soundscape compositions, and sound journal. Other artistic methods such as sketching, painting, and mapmaking are also utilised to deeply engage the location and the locals’ way of life. 

From Colonial Jakarta until Today: Water Management and Flooding 

Jakarta has always been a melting pot of different communities with trade as the catalyst, as is the nature of cities in general. In 1673, when the VOC held a monopoly on trade in Batavia, the population census in Batavia was 27,068, an accumulation of several different ethnicities. The data shows that there was no great Dutch dominance even though the leadership and city planning of Batavia at that time waopl-0s held by the VOC. Ethnic Chinese played a very significant role in urban development, trade and especially in water management. From the 17th century onwards, water management and canalisation in Batavia was considered a serious topic for the VOC, as at that time, Jan Pieterzoen Coen (Governor-General of the East Indies) collaborated with Kapitan Phoa Beng Gan to build the Molenvliet Canal in the south of Batavia to channel larger volumes of water to the north of Batavia, as Batavia was experiencing drought which made trade and transport difficult (Blackburn  2024, 29). 

From the 18th century onwards, the rapid growth of Jakarta made it complicated for the VOC to control the population at the time. It also caused concern for the VOC in controlling the circulation of wood waste that was dumped directly into the canals. The canals became rundown and at the time were blamed for a malaria outbreak that infected the community. As a result of the slums of the rivers, the northern people’s conception of river water changed, they saw river water as dirty, therefore, in the 19th century iron pipes were introduced by the Dutch government. The central government drilled artesian wells and built free communal hydrants in city centre areas which contributed to the emergence of a new European class of urban population. The iron pipes were meant to deliver clean water to the elite-dominated communities in the north, while the communities in the south continued to use river water as their main source of life (Kooy, M. & Bakker, K. 2015). Although different ethnic communities interact with each other on a daily basis, their living situations were for the most part separated in different areas. Another factor affecting the distribution of residential areas is their financial background. Thus, wealthy residents of indigenous, Chinese and Indo-European backgrounds could live with Europeans, forming an elite-dominated community  (van Roosmalen 2015; 88-89). These aspects, hierarchy of social, cultural and economic backgrounds, significantly shaped urban planning and access to water in Jakarta.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Dutch government faced a new problem, the intensity of flooding. With Batavia’s population at 115,887 people (8,893 Europeans, 26,817 Chineses people, and 77,700 indigenous islanders), this density in population burdened the canals which were no longer able to withstand the impact of urbanisation. The percentage of people in post-colonial Jakarta is also increasingly diverse. The rise of Soeharto’s presidential regime in 1965 further attracted people from outside Jakarta to migrate to Jakarta, causing the population to increase from 3.6 million to 5.7 million between 1966 and 1976. Ali Sadikin, the then Jakarta governor, was not convinced that the migrants from outside Jakarta could adapt to the metropolis mentality, and came up with the jargon “menjakartakan warga Jakarta”, which can be loosely translated to “make the citizens of Jakarta (become) Jakarta”. (Blackburn  2024, 315)

Colonisation not only changes physical power relations, but also changes the way people understand their world.

The increasingly alarming influx of people made Ali Sadikin turn his head and come up with the idea of ‘Kampung Improvement’, which had actually been tried by the Dutch around 1920, although not as massively as Ali Sadikin did.  “Kampung” or “desa”, originally a term for autonomous indigenous regions mostly populated by “the uneducated indigenous”, became a problem for the colonial government. Highlighting the relationship between urban planning and public health, the colonial government constructed ideas about the “modern city” through a counterimage of what is not modern: “dirty, disorderly, and impoverished spaces, indigenous and traditionally built. quarters inhabited and built by people seemingly ignorant about the hygienic and other shortcomings of their living environment.”(van Roosmalen 2015, 95). Indeed, colonisation not only changes physical power relations, but also changes the way people understand their world. The unhygienic kampungs were said to be responsible for the epidemics of plague and cholera. The municipal authorities of the colonial government then tried to create a national mandate, by suggesting two possibilities, (1) abolishing the administrative autonomy of indigenous community or (2) granting municipality priority rights to land (Ibid, 92; 94-95). This suggests the initial trigger for the detachment between the indigenous residents and the region they reside in. 

Water Governance and Climate Change

To further understand the development, implementation, impact, and response to policies that have been made by the government regarding water governance and climate change, three keywords have been identified, especially in identifying local issues in the Kalibata Pulo area. (1) Policies surrounding river restoration, to find out the extent of the policy on river area development that covers the management of green open space, public facilities and infrastructure, and water quality monitoring. (2) Policies on waste, the problem of accumulation of waste, or unclear and inaccessible disposal circulation which causes residents to be forced to dispose of their waste where it should not be. In some cases even dumping it into the river, resulting in river congestion, which causes flooding if rainfall is high. (3) Flood mitigation, as flooding is very common in Jakarta, where there are major floods that occur every 5 years.

River restoration

River restoration becomes ever more crucial in policy making in terms of water and urban spatial management to increase water capacity during peak rainfall. Generally there are two measures in implementing restoration:

1) normalisation through dredging the river basin to widen and/or deepen it, as well as building walls or embankments; and (2) naturalisation, which is to return the river and surrounding area to its former state through the framework of creating a green open space.

The first approach is being implemented in 13 rivers across Jakarta and acquired funding from the provincial governmental bodies and the World Bank (George, E. et al 2020, 28). Although both measures are being done, it seems that the latter would be more effective in the long run as there is also a case of insufficient water catchment area in Jakarta, only 10% of the city is set aside for green open space when the supposed  percentage is 30% according to the nation-wide 2007 Spatial Planning Act. However, various projects are repeatedly delayed or halted due to bureaucratic issues (Ibid, 28). The policy surrounding naturalisation is stipulated in the 2019 Governor Regulation of the Special Region of Jakarta no. 141 concerning Development of Naturalisation Areas For Rivers, Streams, Reservoirs, Ponds And Retention Basins, which aside from containing ecological guidelines, discusses the process of land consolidation and its social impacts. Naturally, there is a need for a relocation program to gain access to the land surrounding the rivers inhabited by citizens, especially ones that are prone to flooding. Oftentimes the government evicts the urban poor while the area for green open space is gentrified, and relocation measures available for other natural disasters, such as REKOMPAK, are not being implemented in relation to flooding (van Voorst, R., & Hellman, J 2015; George, E. et al 2020, 29). In the midst of the increasing urban population due to rapid urbanisation, addressing the community’s capacity through relocation is a significant short term response to climate change, and it does not have to be done forcefully.  More effective measures would be to take account their sociocultural backgrounds, as well as providing gradual incentives, such as assuring them economic opportunities in the destination point of relocation in the policy making processes.

Waste policies

The management of water-pollutant waste in Jakarta impacting flooding and water quality is regulated in the Governor Regulation of the Special Capital Region of Jakarta Province No. 41 of 2016. This regulation states that there are 14 points in Jakarta as domestic waste management facilities and regulations to independently manage domestic waste by residents. From several studies and reports related to river water quality in Jakarta, it shows that water quality is heavily polluted (Martinus et al., 2018; DKI Jakarta Provincial Government, 2023). The contaminants affecting the water quality of these rivers are domestic contaminants: waste from households, hotels, and offices, as well as large percentages of faecal coliform (bacteria from faeces) and total coliform (bacteria from animals). From water quality monitoring, it appears that waste management in Jakarta has not been effective and thus river water quality in Jakarta is still heavily polluted.

Flood mitigation

Flooding is caused by three main factors: climate change, uncontrolled urbanisation, and weak socio-economic governance (Rahayu et al., 2019).Much research has shown that flood management and river water quality in Jakarta are far from ideal and continue to be a major problem. Pollution from domestic and industrial waste is the main cause of water quality degradation. Meanwhile, the accumulation of waste and the flow of water that has not been extensively managed also exacerbate the effects of flooding. To overcome this problem, a comprehensive effort involving various parties is needed. Some of the recommendations include improving regular and online water quality monitoring, better waste management, and an ecosystem-based approach to river management. It is also important to improve community capacity in environmental management and reassess existing urbanisation policies (Ibid 2019). Ultimately, though, addressing flooding and improving river water quality in Jakarta requires long-term commitment and cooperation from all parties.

Water Awareness in Kalibata Pulo

As we have surveyed the history of water and related policies in Jakarta, our question now turns to water awareness in Kalibata Pulo.

• How do local communities traditionally detached from policy making processes recognise and understand current governmental water and climate related policies in place?
• How do these communities identify water issues including a wider context of climate change?
• Policies around flooding are always discussed, but what are the residents’ own tactics in overcoming flooding? How do they locally try to mitigate flooding?