Jabodetabek Floods, Unraveling Endless Problems

Flooding in Greater Jakarta seems to be a persistent issue. Various efforts have been made to address it, from the colonial era to the present, yet the problem remains unresolved. Why does this issue never come to an end?

A new chapter of flooding in the Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang, and Bekasi areas began at the start of Ramadan. While Ramadan is usually welcomed with joy, it has now turned into misery. Continuous rainfall in early March 2025 caused homes, shopping centers, and even public facilities in Bekasi to be submerged. A total of 13 districts were inundated, with water levels reaching over 4 meters.

Jakarta, which serves as the confluence of 13 rivers, was also affected. On Tuesday (4/3/2025), the Ciliwung River to the Pesanggarahan River overflowed, submerging homes in Rawajati, South Jakarta, up to a height of 3 meters. The floodgate in Cililitan, East Jakarta, also collapsed.

Floods have struck Tangerang and South Tangerang. The torrent of water flows, seeking the lowest points to accumulate. Eka Aprilia, a TikTok content creator from Bekasi who often showcases her beautiful home in videos, now has to come to terms with her house being damaged by the flood. Rooms that were once clean and adorned with attractive decorations have now turned into spaces filled with stains and mud, remnants of the flooding.

Similarly, the owner of the TikTok account @edukasikidsy, who sells children's toys daily in Bekasi, shared on social media about the merchandise in their store that was submerged in floodwaters. Their business books were soaked, the computer was covered in mud, and packaged food was damaged. "Editing while crying," they wrote on their social media page.

Flooding in Greater Jakarta has indeed been a recurring issue. Even since the Dutch colonial era, this problem has remained unresolved.

In the article of Kompas published on November 10, 2007 entitled History of Floods: Batavia's Legacy for Jakarta it was mentioned that Batavia or Jakarta when it was founded by JP Coen actually had a rectangular canal system. However, the system did not function properly.

The limited capacity has caused the canal system to fail as a flood control measure due to its narrowness. The unhygienic condition of the canal has even led to the emergence of disease sources.

The year 1621 was the first recorded time in the history of the Dutch East Indies, where the VOC's main defense post in East Asia was hit by a major flood.

In the book Jelajah Kopi Nusantara published by Kompas in 2018, in 1696 or 80 years after Batavia was founded, flooding occurred again. As a result of this flood, the first coffee plants planted by the Dutch were damaged.

Flood records continued. The Sin Po newspaper of February 19, 1918, recorded that almost all areas of Jakarta were inundated. This flood was recorded as the largest in the history of floods in the center of the Dutch East Indies government.

Floods continued to occur almost every year after independence. Floods hit in 1965, 1967, and 1968. The flood in 1970 was even called the biggest flood for 20 years after independence where telephone center facilities were damaged and hospital patients had to be evacuated.

In the millennial era, flooding remains a major problem in the capital city and its surroundings. The Merdeka Palace was also flooded in 2005. In the Kompas news on July 15, 2005, it was said that the flood came from Jalan Merdeka Selatan and Jalan Kebon Sirih, then hit almost half of the Vice President's Palace, which stands side by side with the United States Embassy, the Jakarta DPRD Building, and the City Hall Building where the Governor of DKI Jakarta Sutiyoso has his office.

This year, floods continue to disrupt the lives of Jabodetabek residents.

It has never been possible to calculate exactly how much damage has been caused by flooding in Jakarta and its surroundings since ancient times. At least we have an idea that flooding once caused the failure of the first coffee planting and in 1965 became the cause of the loss of 1.2 million tons of rice every year.

Starting in 2007, losses were more recorded. The results of a rapid damage assessment conducted by the National Development Planning Agency or Bappenas in 2007 showed that the amount of losses due to flooding in Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi had reached Rp 5.2 trillion. That amount did not take into account indirect economic losses of Rp 3.6 trillion.

Flooding in Jabodetabek is indeed a recurring problem. Even since the Dutch colonial era, this problem has not been resolved.

In 2024, citing the Antara news agency, the Jakarta Regional Disaster Management Agency said flood losses in DKI reached Rp 2.1 trillion per year. That does not include psychological losses, time, and energy.

The flood losses this week have certainly added to the long list of losses.

The history of dealing with floods in Jabodetabek is as long as the history of floods themselves. Floods in Jabodetabek are triggered by many things so that their handling is complex.

During the Old Order, population density, especially in river basins, was already detected as a trigger for flooding. This problem has become increasingly severe as the population of Jabodetabek has increased due to development and migration to the city.

This problem continues with land subsidence. In 2005, it was observed that 40 percent of Jakarta was below sea level, aka prone to flooding.

Flood triggers are also added by the five-year weather period, where rainfall becomes very high at certain times. BMKG analysis shows that several major flood events in Jakarta in 1918, 1979, 1996, 2002, 2007, 2013, 2014, and 2015, can be linked to extreme rainfall and the meteorological phenomena that formed it.

Another problem is damage in the upstream and land conversion. The Citarum-Ciliwung River Basin Management Center on the site bebasbanjir2025.wordpress.com, released, since 1993, in several areas in Jabodetabek, there has been a land conversion of 9,149.84 hectares. Forest Watch Indonesia noted that the Ciliwung River basin area cover decreased by 5,000 hectares in the period 2000-2009.

As a result, rainwater becomes surface water and causes the Ciliwung River to overflow more easily during high rainfall.

When it was first built in 1621, Jakarta, which was then called Batavia, already had a water channel, but it did not function properly because it could not accommodate all the flowing water.

In the 20th century, Dutch water expert Herman Van Breen designed the West flood canal (1919-1920). Restu Gunawan, a flood researcher from the Directorate General of History and Archaeology in a 2007 Kompas article, said that since 1913, the Dutch had allocated 2 million guilders to overcome flooding by creating a flood canal. However, until the Dutch left the country, the project had not been completed.

After independence, President Soekarno established Presidential Decree No. 183 of 1965 on June 22, 1965. The decree stated that all flood control projects in Jakarta with all its branches were vital bodies. This policy was taken after Jakarta experienced a major flood that year.

Soekarno also formed the Jakarta Flood Project Command (Kopro), whose task was to repair canals and build six reservoirs around Jakarta. However, some of the reservoirs have disappeared and some have not been built until now.

Infrastructure development and maintenance have indeed encountered obstacles. On November 10, 2007, DKI Governor Sutiyoso said that normalizing hundreds of drainage networks requires a budget of IDR 1.2 trillion, but only IDR 272 billion is available. The value will increase if 13 rivers are normalized.

The government is also trying another way to prevent flooding, namely weather modification. Weather modification is carried out to prevent flooding in Jakarta. Head of the BMKG Public Meteorology Center Fachri Perdanakusuma in 2020 said that rainfall in Jakarta had reached 377 millimeters (mm) per day. That was the highest record in the last 154 years at that time.

The Seventh President of the Republic of Indonesia Joko Widodo on December 23, 2022 inaugurated the Ciawi and Sukamahi dams in Bogor, West Java. The dams are claimed to reduce 318 million cubic meters of water from the 464 million cubic meters of water entering the Jakarta area and its surroundings from upstream.

However, the dam has not been able to prevent flash floods. According to Yayat Supriatna on Metro TV's Primetime News on March 4, the dam could not capture the high rainfall and its wide distribution in Bogor City and Regency.

The various things done by the government have not produced optimal results. Until now, Jabodetabek is still hampered by flooding.

This may be related to the classic problem faced, namely the reduction of water catchment areas. In the 1965-1985 master plan, Jakarta was designed to have 37.2 percent green open space. However, based on data from several agencies in the DKI Provincial Government in the Kompas news on May 26, 2023, more than 80 percent of the land in Jakarta has been covered in concrete. There is only 5 percent green open space.

On the other hand, the flow of 13 rivers and canals that reach a length of approximately 415 kilometers with a river basin area of 380,000 hectares which should be able to function as flood catchment areas and overflow locations when the river overflows, have now been turned into residential areas or other functions.

Conservation expert who is also Head of the Masters Program in the Geography Department of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Indonesia, Tarsoen Waryono, in a news report published in Kompas, November 13, 2011, stated that no matter how many polders, pump houses, and culvert revitalization are carried out, as long as the natural water reservoirs and drainage facilities, namely rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and green open spaces are still bad, flooding will still be a threat. This statement is still relevant today.

Now the flood continues. Changing governors, even changing presidents apparently did not change the fate of flood victims in Jabodetabek.