2. Present situation of water resources and water related
disasters and the role of agro-environmental educationin Indonesia
Hidayat PAWITAN1Introduction and Some Background
Most recent flood events in Indonesia were occurring in all over the country taking death
tolls of 155 souls, 13 missing, and some 383 900 people were forced to leave their homes
as the floods damaged more than 3 100 of their houses and inundated another 94 600
houses (Soenarno, 2002). These floods just occurred in the middle of rainy season sinceNovember 2001 and intensifying during February 2002. Initiated in North Sumatra
Province, the floods first inundated and halted the operation of Polonia Airport of Medan,
the Capital City of the Province, and then spread out to other parts of Indonesia, not lessthan 23 provinces, including landslides and flooding many areas in Java, such as:
Kebumen, Banyuwangi, Bandung, and also Jakarta. Rainfall intensity in Jakarta area
during a five-day event at the end of February 2002 was recorded at 425 mm, causing
extensive floods in Jakarta and paralyzing the City’s socio-economic activities for several
days. Inundated roads had caused serious traffic jams and public anxieties. Someeconomists gave an estimated loss of this recent Jakarta flood of about 5 ~ 6.7 trillion
rupiahs (more than half a billion USD), accounting direct material damages and indirect
losses as impacts of the flood. These disasters had awaken awareness of the decision
makers in Indonesia on the strong influence of water resources and water related disasters
to the national economy that open new challenges and opportunities to natural scientists,
especially meteorologists, hydrologists, and climatologists, to contribute professionally tothe society. This is due to the impacts of these natural disasters such as floods, droughts
and wild forest fires, and their great economic consequences. In 1991’s drought, about
one million hectares of the second season rice paddy were affected and some 30% wascompletely loss (harvest failures), and this is as much as ten time of normal year losses
which is reaching 100 000 hectares/year. In 1994 and 1997 droughts, the affected rice
areas were about half a million hectares. So, during severe droughts, about 10% to 25% ofplanting rice areas were affected by droughts. I reckon that if we understood more of theclimate behaviors and can anticipate its seasonal patterns better, we can suppress theselosses much lower, even during normal years. And this certainly will help the farmers,
who are still the majority of the Indonesian population, approximately 60% of presently
220 million Indonesian population, and the country as to ensure the food security.
The present paper concerns the issues of water resources and water related disasters that
affected the environment and society more in natural context where vegetative or non1

Laboratorium of Hydrometeorology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences,
Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor 16144, INDONESIA
hpawitan@indo.net.id1structural approach is prevalence, therefore exclude any discussion of water related
disasters in urban build up areas. The environmental problems generated by water related
disasters in agricultural and forestry lands are vast and far ranging in consequences as will
be presented and discussed briefly.
Anthropogenic influences: in the past century land use changes from forest cover toagricultural uses, but in the last few decades land use conversion in Java is fromagricultural to non-agricultural uses. Population pressure with intensive agriculture andrapid recent industrial development implied extensive land use changes and increased
water demand, and suspected to cause this long term changes, in addition to global
climatic change. From four million to forty million people in Java and Madura was thetitle of Boeke report (1941) indicating the population increase from 1800 to 1930, when
the first Sensus was conducted. It was reported that since old days, population density inJava had been very diverse, from 9 persons/km2 to 880 person/km2 in 1815 with average
35 person/km2, and this average increased to 330 (1930) and 1000 (2000). This increase of
population has severely affected the land uses and continuous changes in vegetation
covers, with consequences in land degradation, soil erosion, and changes in hydrologic
regimes and environmental qualities.
Status of Indonesia water resources can be examined from primary water availability bymajor islands as given on Table 1 indicating a total water available of 2110 mm/year or
127 775 m3/s which is equivalent to four million MCM/year (MCM= mega cubic meter).
Dividing this regional water availability by population of the region give water availability
index that ranges from 0.15 m3/cap./day for metropolitan areas like Jakarta to 1480
m3/cap./day for West Papua or approximately 50 m3/cap./day for a national average. Thiswater availability is relatively abundance, however un-equal distribution in time and spacein many cases has caused serious problems to the environment and society. Monsoon
rains drop 80% of the annual total during rainy season, and severe droughts with wide
spread impacts occur almost periodically. Figure 1 illustrates the typical seasonal patternof rainfall in Indonesia that is recognized of three types and the characteristics of Java
major river basins and their stream flows are as given on Tables 2 and 3 below with theaverage minimum and maximum discharges indicating extreme conditions.
Table 1. Water availability in Indonesia by major islands.
IslandSumatraJava
Bali&NT
Kalimantan
Sulawesi
MalukuW.Papua
Indonesia

Area
[103
km2]
477.4
121.3
87.9
534.8
190.4
85.4
413.9
1911.1

Rainfall[mm/yr]
2801
2555
1695
2956
2156
2218
3224
2779

Runoff[mm/yr]
1848
1658
997
1968
1352
1400
2175
1832

Groundwater[m3/s]
27 9626 378
2 779
33 3598 157
3 785
28 524110 944

Source: Pawitan (1999)

2[mm/yr]
280
255
170
296
216
222
322
278

[m3/s]
4 236
982
472
5 010
1 301
600
4 229
16 831

Total Water
Available[mm/yr][m3/s]
2 128
32 198
1 915
7 360
1 167
3 251
2 264
28 369
1 564
9 458
1 621
4 385
2 497
32 7542 110
127 775

ACE H
600
500
400

P ON T IA NAK

300
200
100
0

M E NADO

600
500

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12

400
300
200
100
0

60 0
50 0
40 0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

JAYAPURA

30 0
20 0
10 0
0

9 10 11 12

6 00
5 00
4 00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 1 2

3 00
2 00
1 00
0
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12

Khatulistiwa

PADANG
600
500
400
300
200
100
0

TIM IK A
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12

T ELUK BET UNG

600
500

6 00
5 00
4 00
3 00
2 00
1 00
0

400
300
200

BA NYUWA NGI

100
0

6 00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12

5 00
4 00

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12

3 00
2 00
1 00
0
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12

Figure 1. Seasonal patterns of Indonesia rainfall.

Table 2. Characteristics of Java Major River Basins.
No.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Name of River

Citarum

Cimanuk

Citanduy

Length [km]Catchment
area [km2]Highest peak [m]

269
6 080

1 700
0

230
3 600

3 078
0

170
4 460

1 750
0

158
3 383

2 565
0

Lowest point [m]Main cities
Population(year)
Bandung
2 513 000
(1992)
Cirebon256 134(1995)
Tasik 187 609
Ciamis 145 406
Banjar 130 197(1995)

Land use1) [%]
F

L

A

P

U

20

2.5

18

30

29.5

22.8

0.01

29.8

36

6.6

9.3

0.08

48

24

16.6

35.6

24.6

22.7

32

45

19

24.5

66

6.0

19.8

29.2

28.9

Purwokerto
209 005
17
5.
140
1 650
Magelang
Progo
4
2 380
0
116 468(1995)
6.
600
3 265
Solo: 525 371
Bengawan Solo
3.0
.5
16 1000
Ngawi:829 726(1993)
7.
320
3 369
Surabaya
Brantas12 00002 270 081
22.1
(1990)
1). F: forest; L: lakes, rives, marshes; A: agriculture fields; P: paddy fields; U: urban areas.
Source: Catalogue of Rivers, Vol. 1,2,3.
SerayuTable 3. Discharge characteristics of Java Major Rivers.
No.

Name of River

StationNanjung
Citarum
Rentang
Cimanuk
Cikawung
Citanduy
RawaloSerayuBantarProgo
Bengawan Solo Bojonegoro
Jabon
BrantasSource: Catalogue of Rivers, Vol. 1,2,3.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

_
Q [m3/s]
68.7
134.7
204.0
273.4
89.3
362.9
258.7

Catchmentarea(A) [km2]
1 675
3 003
2 515
2 631
2 008
12 8048 650

3_Qmax [m3/s]
455.0
305.6
710.6
1 497
596.0
2 127
866.1

_
Qmin [m3/s]
5.4
19.9
16.3
58.8
9.0
19.0
46.6

Qmax/A[m3/s/100km2]
27.1
14.6
39.2
76.8
29.8
17.0
10.0

Water Resources and Water Related Disasters: Floods and Droughts
Water resources and water related disasters in the forms of floods and droughts can berecognized from their direct impacts as indicated by harvest failures, especially of rice
crops, as given on Tables 4, 5 and 6. Other significant impacts can be observed on land
and forest fires as indicated on Tables 7 and 8. Briefly these are described below.
Impacts on Rice Crops: Indonesia agricultural production system is characterized bysmall scale land tenure ship and intensive cultivation almost all year round that proved tobe very prone to climate anomalies such as floods and droughts. The impacts of severe
droughts were indicated by harvest failures for extended paddy areas, even under technicalirrigation facilities. Compare the affected areas of the years 1991, 1994, and 1997 whichwere approximately ten times those of normal years. Typically 20% of the affected areas
fail totally to harvest and the remaining areas only produced about 50% of normal yields.
Table 5 indicates that Sumatra and Java are the most drought’s affected areas.
Table 4. Estimates of annual yield losses caused by floods and droughts on Indonesia rice fields,
1988~2001.
Year
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000*
2001*
Note:

FloodsArea
Total Damage
Affected[Ha][Ha]
130 375
28 93496 54013 17466 901
9 642
38 0065 707
50 3609 615
79 48026 844132 973
32 881
218 14446 957107 385
38 16758 97413 787
158 737
34 701
188 655
42 08734 49310 097
10 224
3 687* Taken from Baharsjah (2002).

Yield Loss
[Tons]
311 087
221 329
156 41290 239123 781
218 876
342 302547 639305 379
153 177385 633
466 029

Area
Affected[Ha]
87 37336 14354 125867 997
42 40966 992544 42228 58059 560504 021183 464
104 41760 36773 460Droughts
Total
Damage[Ha]
15 1152 116
9 521
192 347
7 267
20 415161 1444 614
12 48288 46732 681
12 6194 715
5 271

Yield Loss
[Tons]
200 131
77 181130 057
2 188 921
102 525
181 643
1 456 200
68 571
151 150
1 247 306
430 901
236 377

Table 5. Drought Impacts over major islands of Indonesia Rice Fields (Ha) during Dry Season of
1989-1997.
Year:
Area
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
9 867
12 545100 0182 983
1 063
1. Sumatra
456
2 618
591 098
7 363
7 912
2. Java
94
4 503
76 828141
12 627
3. Kalimantan
513
14 442
83 99079
30 8204. Sulawesi
764
27
20 3436 714
916
5. Bali-NTT
3
4
21
279
104
6.Maluku-Irja
INDONESIA
11 69734 139872 298
17 55953 442
Source: Directorate of Food Crop Protection, Ministry of Agriculture –RI, 1998.

4

1994
72 844322 655
51 27114 8797 508
20469 1771997
138 295
148 81566 26765 8861 705
283
421 251

Table 6 indicates that dry seasonal flood damage was 10 to 20 percent of those of rainyseason floods. The frequencies of floods by region were found in 15 provinces and 115
districts in ten years with few experienced 6 to 8 times in ten years. The areas affected
were few hundreds of thousand hectares per district.
Table 6. Recent Flood Impacts on Indonesia Rice Fields by seasons (Ha).
April-September
October-March
Total:
Area
Total
Area
Total
Area
Total
Affected
DamagedAffected
DamagedAffected
Damaged15 3484 015
71 687
14 92287 03518 937Prev.Average*
7 822
4 840
75 98016 06283 80220 902
1994/95
1995/96
44 2367 359
179 462
54 968
223 698
62 3277 543
1 042
74 09018 63381 63319 584
1996/97
6 230
459
45 993
11 65752 23212 116
1997/98
Note: * Previous five year average (1989/90 – 1993/94).
Source: Directorate of Food Crop Protection – Ministry of Agriculture – RI, 1998.
Budget Year

Impacts on Forest Fires: Forest fires were first included as part of Indonesian Forest
Statistics in 1978/1979, though it was first recorded in 1882 when Michielsen conducted asurvey in Central Kalimantan. He reported that forest fire had damaged a number of sites
in 1877. A first comprehensive record of major forest fire was made after the 1982-1983
fires in East Kalimantan that devastated over 3.5 million hectares of forest lands, thegreatest forest fire in recorded history. A fact finding team investigated the vegetation
affected by the fires and concluded that the fires destroyed 800 000 ha of primary forest, 1
400 000 ha of logged over forest and 750 000 ha of secondary forest, and 550 000 ha ofpeat swamp forest. Economic losses due to the fires were estimated at USD 9. Billion as
indicated on Table 7 below.
The Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation of the Ministry ofForestry – RI reported that a minimum of 25 000 ha of forest fires annually, and between
1988 and 1992 at least 190 884 ha were on fire – an average of 47 721 ha per year. The
scale of forest fires increased significantly with the onset of prolonged droughts such as
those associated with the recurrent ENSO events known as El Nino years: 1982-83; 1987;
1991; 1994; and 1997. Extent of forest fires in Indonesia, broken down by major islands,
since 1984 to present years is given on Table 8 that indicated the recurrence major fires inrelation to severe drought years, and the dominant regions of Sumatra and Kalimantan.
These fires also known for their negative impacts on transportation and health sectors,
primarily due to wide spread haze that also affected Singapore and Malaysia (Transboundary haze problems).
Table 7. Estimated economic losses from forest fires in East Kalimantan 1982-1983.
Source of Loss

Value (Million USD)

Timber from natural forest
Timber from swamp forest
Non-timber forest products
Rehabilitation expenses
Total

7 981
348
373
352
9 054

Sources: Warta Ekonomi, No.19, October 7, 1991.

5

Table 8. Forest fires in Indonesia, 1984~2000 (Ha).
Year

Sumatra

Java+Bali

Kalimantan

Sulawesi

4 808
10 26500
1984
17 748
5 214
0
1 516
1985
10 236
5 773
4 689
879
1986
12 58318 685
2 367
9 761
1987
6 123
10 398
745
28
1988
6 123
10 398745
28
1989
13 929
5 443
1 314
1 454
1990
25 68635 84329 901
8 501
1991
2 912
5 904
3 526
0
1992
27 244
4 704
352
6
1993
32 05496 10818 292
4 521
1994
304
6 198
75
56
1995
2 280
5 523
1 102
442
1996
72 37624 22586 62225 850
1997
1998
1999
2000
Source: Ditjen Perlindungan Hutan dan Pelestarian Alam, 1997.

Maluku+West Papua
0
6 100
250
0
0
0
623
265
0
0
1 132
0
0
30 294

Indonesia
15 07942 57022 03849 32317 66115 88525 573
118 881
14 53240 897
161 798
6 705
10 356263 991

Land Use and Cover Changes
Change of land use has been marked especially during the last three decades, withextensive physical development and urbanization. Deterioration of land and water
resources in many of Indonesia’s watersheds is widespread. Erosion hazards have reached
the point where some upland areas have to be abandoned due to lack of productivity. It isbelieved that these land use and cover changes have had direct impacts on hydrologic
regimes. Conservative estimate came to about 80 million ha of derelict land in the year
2000. Recent conditions of Java hydrology and water resources were characterized byoccurrences of extreme floods and droughts with high pollutant contents of water bodies.
And water crisis is anticipated as real threat to satisfy Java increasing water demands.

The Case of Java Island: Java is the most densely populated island in the world and has
been known as an island village. The whole island has become almost completely
inhabited at about 1000 inhabitants per square kilometer, which causes high pressure toland. The population increase was obvious in the last two centuries, from only about four
million people at the beginning of the nineteenth century, about forty million at the
beginning of the twentieth century, and to the present population of about 130 million.
This population increase had caused a drastic change in Java land uses, with obvious
desertification at some places in Java, although the forest land coverage is still recorded at
20%. Pawitan (1999) did a trend analysis for the rainfall data over the period of 1896 to
1994 for Citarum river basin, and it was found that consistent decline of annual rainfall
occurred with approximately 10 mm/year reduction and accompanied with 3 mm/year
reduction of runoff. Evaluation of more rainfall series over the South Java areas also gavethe same trend of reduction of annual rainfall and stream flow. However, more intensive
droughts and floods were experienced also with increased frequencies. Therefore,possible impact of climate change was considered and relationship with ENSO phenomena

6was evaluated. From long term SOI series it was found that dramatic change of the SOI
patterns for the past two decades was reflected by seasonal changes of Java rainfalls.
Severe droughts were characterized by drops of total annual rainfall by 100 % that was
distributed by reduction up to 300 % during dry season and 50 % reduction during wet
season rainfalls. These have been associated strongly to recent increase of El Nino events.
The Case of Sumatra Island: Syam et al.(1997) examined the land use changes in the
study site in Lampung province, from 1970 to 1990, considering the national policy,transmigration, and the agro-economical circumstances. Fifty seven percent of the studysite was covered with primary forest in 1970,against 13% in 1990. Areas under plantation
which were not recorded in 1970, increased to 60% in 1990. In addition, the change frommonoculture plantations (mostly coffee) to mixed plantations was noticeable from 1984 to
1990. Total upland areas, including area under shifting cultivation and upland fields withcrops and vegetables only with fruit trees, decreased from 21% in 1970 to 0.1% in 1990,
clearly suggesting the establishment of plantation agriculture, mainly coffee plantation, inhilly areas, and the conversion of areas for crop and vegetable production to the middle
terraces in Lampung Province.

Soil Erosion and Critical Lands
Before the turn of the 20th century there had been little research on the environmental
problems in Indonesia, however with increasing deforestation with recent un-controlled
illegal logging and its negative impacts, investigations were carried out on some river
basins. Earliest study was by Mohr (1906) who found detrimental effects of irrigating rice
fields. Erosion rates of parts of Serayu basin were estimated from suspended loads of over
5 700 tons/km2 at Sojokerto to over 24 600 tons/ km2 at Pekacangan river. Rutten (1917)
concluded that denudation rates were highly dependent on lithological characteristics.
Volcanic material had less erosion rate (0.1~0.4 mm/yr) compared to marl (1.6~5.0
mm/yr). Van Dijk and Vogelzang (1948) compared the sediment yields in West Java forthe years 1911-1912 and 1934-1935: 900 m3/km2 at annual rainfall 1797 mm and 1 900
m3/km2 at annual rainfall 1941 mm, respectively. Erosion measurements in Central Javawas done by van der Linden (1983) giving an annual estimate of 177 tons as bedload andTable 9. Critical land (1988) and Annual Rehabilitation Rate (1976-87)
Island(s)SumatraJava & Bali
NusaTenggara
Kalimantan
Sulawesi
MalukuIrian Jaya
Indonesia

InsideForest1405900
97700
1025100
1798300
1099300
3054001868005918500

Critical Lands
OutsideForest2298600
1262900
1151500
1165300
96520033040095800
7269700

Total
3704500
1360600
2176600
2963600
2064500
63580028260013188200

Annual Rehabilitation Rate
InsideOutsideForestForestTotal
37651
1035031411541148
223650224798
7900
22764
30654
16860
10438
27298
30263
64293
94556
54
408
462
0
0
0
93876
425046518922another 44.5 tons as suspended loads. According to Thijsse (1974, 1976) approximately
40 % of the total up land area in Indonesia of about 100 million ha was already in

7

deteriorated state (“desert land”). Table 9 indicates the status of critical lands in 1988 andthe national capacity in rehabilitating the land during 1976~1987 period. Present rate of
deforestation is approximated at two million hectares annually and unfortunately it can besaid that there is no significant improvement in the capacity of land rehabilitation.

Role of Agro-environmental Education
Present education institutional capacity of Indonesia in agro-environmental matters ismostly centered around the Public Universities with Agricultural Faculties in the wide
sense, including fisheries, forestry, and some environment and natural sciences. Recent
national development in the past decades has shown the important roles of the agroenvironmental scientists and engineers not only in safe guarding the environment for
future generation, but also to ensure better societal welfare and economic conditions andnational food security. Obvious constraint that presently limit in realizing this role is thelack of data on water resources and water related observations, including hydro-climate
data. Sufficient climate observations in Indonesia now are only limited to small number ofagricultural research stations, especially in Java at approximately 100 stations on inIndonesia at some 250 stations, and hydrometry stations that are operated on yearly basis
subject to availability of hydrologic ‘projects’. Therefore, to fulfill present needs ofhydro-climate information, a network of climate ‘centers’ will be required and to be wellattended by skillful managers and operators, which are now still lacking. The present
National Task Force on Climate Anomalous to Ensure Food Security to deal with droughts
and floods disasters that is being set up by the Ministry of Agriculture, is in the process ofrecruiting necessary personals at the national and regional levels from various sectoral
agencies. The present target was in drought anticipation of El Nino 2002, therefore tosecure food supply. At national level, some 15 inter-departmental agencies have been
identified for participation, in addition to the internal working units within the Ministry ofAgriculture. And at the provincial level, approximately 10 technical service agencies will
be coordinated. The first program of the Task Force would be to train these people onhydro-climate matters and how to socialize the information to the society (farmers) withthe consequences on plan of planting seasons. So, the role of agro-environmental
education includes communicating the hydro-climate information to the society with realactions.

Concluding Remarks
1. Population pressure with intensive agriculture and rapid recent industrial development
implied extensive land use changes and increased water demand, generated degraded
land and soil erosion, and was suspected to cause long term changes in regionalhydrologic regimes in Indonesia.
2. The impacts of severe droughts were indicated by harvest failures for extended rice
areas, even under technical irrigation facilities that approximately can reach ten times
those of normal years. Typically 20% of the affected areas fail totally to harvest andthe remaining areas only produced about 50% of normal yields. The frequencies offloods by region were found in 15 provinces and 115 districts in ten years with few

8experienced 6 to 8 times in ten years. The areas affected were few hundreds ofthousand hectares per district.
3. Typically there is a minimum of 25 000 ha of forest fires annually, and between 1988
and 1992 at least 190 884 ha were on fire – an average of 47 721 ha per year. The scaleof forest fire increased significantly with the onset of prolonged droughts such as those
associated with the recurrent ENSO events known as El Nino years: 1982-83; 1987;
1991; 1994; and 1997.
4. The important role of agro-environmental education in practice is curbed by the lack ofnecessary hydro-climatic information from actual observations.

References
AARD (1997). Impacts of severe drought of 1997 and steps to overcome it (InIndonesian). Department of Agriculture – RI, Jakarta.
Baharsjah, J.S. (2002). Quo Vadis Masyarakat Hemat Air. Orasi Purnabhakti. Institut
Pertanian Bogor.
Catalogue of Rivers, Vol. I (1995), II (1997), III (2000). Unesco – IHP RSC Southeast
Asia and the Pacific.
Pawitan, Hidayat (1999). Mengantisipasi krisis air national memasuki abad 21. Presented
at Seminar on Clean Water Needs and Human Rights, organized by Indonesia
Hydrological Society, Indonesia Hydraulic Engineers Association and IHP National
Committee, Bogor.
____________ (1999a). ENSO impacts on Indonesia seasonal rainfall. Paper presented at
the Asian Pacific FRIEND and GAME Joint Workshop on ENSO, Floods andDroughts in the 1990s in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Hanoi – Vietnam, 23-26
March.
______________ (2000). Long term changes of Java hydrologic regimes. Paper presented
at International Symposium on Fresh Perspectives in Hydrology and the EightRegional Steering Committee (RSC) Meeting for International Hydrological
Program Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Christchurch, New Zealand, 20~24
November, 2000.
Soenarno (2002). Remarks of Opening Seminar on Flood Management for People’s
Welfare. Indonesia National Committee for Unesco, April 30, Jakarta.
Syam, et al (1997). Land use and cover changes in a hilly area of South Suamtra,Indonesia (from 1970 to 1990). Soil Sci. Plant Nutr., 43(3): 587-599.
Van der Linden (1983). Soil erosion in Central Java (Indonesia) – a comparative study oferosion rates obtained by erosion plots and catchment discharges. In: de Ploey, J.
(Ed.):
Rainfall Simulation, Runoff and Soil Erosion.
Catena Suppl. 4,
Braunschweig.

9