The Sinking of Jakarta: A Case Study in Coastal City Planning
Photo from Architectural Digest
In recent years, it has been reported that several coastal cities around the world have been sinking, including, but not limited to: Venice, Amsterdam, Alexandria, and New Orleans. Out of these places, there is no place that quite compares to the rate at which Jakarta is sinking. Over the past twenty-five years, the hardest-hit parts of the city have sunk more than sixteen feet, and according to experts, Jakarta has less than five years to deliver a solution to the multitude of issues that come with rising seawaters. Dealing with natural disasters is an interdisciplinary issue that requires the involvement of many different groups, including politicians who implement the laws, and the engineers who design the groundwork for flood-safe structures.
One of the major solutions that has been proposed in this case is to relocate the capital from Jakarta to Nusantara, which is located on the coast of Borneo in East Kalimantan. The name nusantara comes from an Old Javanese word which can be translated as ‘the outer islands.’ This endeavor of the planned city has already begun construction in July 2022, but will be officially inaugurated in August 2024. Urban development in coastal cities is a major global effort that demands the use of suitable engineering principles to safeguard the health and well-being of people’s livelihoods.
Historically, major cities are geographically located by the ocean due to the ease of access to ports and trade routes. This concept has translated into modern day, since waterfront cities are commonly perceived as something that “increases the economic value and the identity of a place,” (Setiadi et al.) which tends to attract more people to live there. According to the World Urbanization Prospect (US-DESA, 2018), this trend is projected to rise in the coming years and by 2050, approximately “70% of populations will live in coastal cities.” (Setiadi et al.) This poses issues when it comes to climate change and rising seawater levels.
To mitigate these concerns, members from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Diponegoro University in Indonesia have proposed a “Sea Cities” framework for responding to climate change. As described in their paper, “Extending Urban Development on Water: Jakarta Case Study,” the main goal of “Sea Cities” is to transform all city elements from terrestrial to aquatic-based using four tactics: “fortifying, accommodate, release, and floating” (Setiadi et al.). The fortifying tactic relates to improving infrastructure related to seawalls, wave breakers and tide gates, as well as embracing natural processes, such as dunes or mangrove rooting systems to strengthen the soil. In 2014, the National Capital Integrated Coastal Development (NCICD), was launched as a joint project between Indonesia and the Dutch government. It was created in response to a disastrous flood in Indonesia in 2007 which displaced over 600,000 people. Although it initially seemed like a good idea, this masterplan received criticism in terms of the financial situation—it would cost over $50 billion USD for only focusing on a small part of Indonesia that needed help and would potentially get destroyed by floodwaters anyways.
Other preventative methods that have been put into place are risk-zoning and elevating floors and houses through spontaneous building efforts. But still, not much effort has been put into updating building codes, to reflect the changing environmental landscape, so this is something that engineers will have to consider in the future. The accommodate, release, and floating tactics are interconnected, on the basis of work done by Gerhard Bruyns and Pater Hasdel, who push for the notion of viewing the ocean as “not a challenge or a threat, but also an urban resource” (Setiadi et al.) that can be used for engineers to build upon. Some architectural structures which have been proposed are floating islands, which are tethered to the sea floor and can rise along with rising tides.
As described in a paper from the School of Architecture, Planning and Policy Development in Indonesia, the back-casting approach is a technique that can be used to measure the gap between a current condition and the future vision as a way to strategically plan (Rahayu et al.). In this paper, short-, middle-, and long-term recommendations are put into place regarding drainage and flood control. Among these recommendations, they hope to implement an emergency response and flood warning system and increase the capacity of draining systems to prepare for future threats. These efforts are connected to the prima facie ethical principle of prevention, since government officials and engineers are each working towards making contingency plans and communicative efforts to ensure that civilians are prepared for the next possible strike.
On a sociological level, the collective response to coastal hazards is greatly shaped by the presence and form of social neighborhoods. As engineers, we play a large responsibility in designing the social structure of the world around us—as form follows function, the vice versa is also true. In a paper titled, “Adaptive neighborhoods: The interrelation of urban form, social capital, and responses to coastal hazards in Jakarta,” from the Institute of Geography at the University of Cologne, they observed the different types of public meeting places to understand their influence on the formation of social capital. From their findings, they discovered that common places like food stalls and hangout areas create spaces for social encounters to reinforce bonds between neighbors (Bott et al.), but there seemed to be a scarcity of official meeting places that could connect different neighborhoods together. By engaging nearby communities, common spaces can develop adaptive neighborhoods when it comes to dealing with natural disasters.
Though it is a harrowing thought, with the rate of rising seawaters levels, this situation is certainly not unique to Jakarta. Mitigating coastal flooding is a major engineering challenge that most of Southeast Asia (e.g. the Philippines, Cambodia, and Thailand) faces, due to similar issues with stable infrastructure and proper disaster response mechanisms. Although the back-casting approach can be applied when identifying nearby bodies of water or potential lower-elevation areas, one of the major challenges is the economic burden on a country that it takes to plan or recover from such natural disasters, especially in these areas, which are geographically more prone to tsunamis and earthquakes.
In the case of Jakarta, although the relocation of the capital has already been proposed and set in action, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done before fully transitioning to the new capital Nusantara. It should be considered that this new capital is also a coastal city. Though not much information has been released about the architecture in Nusantara, it becomes a question of: given the opportunity to start from scratch, how can we create a place that is truly safe from harm?
Around the world, there are many problems which have been worsened by global warming and there might come a time when the places we call home may no longer be considered habitable. Engineers who are involved with coastal city planning not only have to consider the architectural concerns with creating structures that are flood-proof, but also the human lives that are impacted by natural disaster.
References
R. Setiadi, J. Baumeister, P. Burton, J. Nalau. “Extending Urban Development on Water: Jakarta Case Study.” Environment and Urbanization ASIA, 11 (2) 247-265, 2020. DOI: 10.1177/0975425320938539 journals.sagepub.com/home/eua
H.P. Rahayu, R. Haigh, D. Amaratunga, et al. “A micro scale study of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction in coastal urban strategic planning for the Jakarta.” International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, 11 (1) 119-133, 2020. DOI 10.1108/IJDRBE-10-2019-0073
L. Bott, L. Ankel, B. Braun. “Adaptive neighborhoods: The interrelation of urban form, social capital, and responses to coastal hazards in Jakarta.” Geoforum, 106, 202-213, 2019. DOI: https://doi-org.ezproxy2.library.drexel.edu/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.08.016