Sealing Off Is Not Enough to Prevent Floods

5 hours ago 3

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - It is time to stop the changes of land use around the upstream area of the Bekasi River. Floods cannot be prevented simply by sealing off land.

WITHOUT proper follow-up measures, the move by Coordinating Minister for Food Affairs Zulkifli Hasan and Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq to seal off two housing clusters on high land in Sentul, Bogor, West Java, will not have any meaningful result. Downstream flooding will become a routine disaster for people in flood-prone areas such as Bogor, Bekasi and Karawang, as well as Jakarta—as happened on March 12, 2025.

A day after that flooding, the two ministers sealed off the Chardonnay Cluster in the Citra City Sentul housing complex and the Alderwood Residence Cluster in the Summarecon Bogor housing complex. The developers are accused of breaching the environmental approval agreement and ignoring land management, which contributed to the floods that hit residential areas and a shopping center. But there has been no sign of any follow-up action by the government following the sealing off.

There are clear indications of violations. An investigation by Tempo found that the Citra City housing complex does not have a satisfactory water runoff management system. When rain falls, large amounts of water flow directly into the Cijayanti River. This river quickly overflows because of the sedimentation resulting from the development of the housing complex, which is only 38 meters from the riverbank.

And there are problems with the Chardonnay Cluster environmental approval. It uses the same environmental impact analysis document as the Sentul City housing complex, despite the two areas having different owners. Citra City Sentul—a joint venture between Sentul City and Citra Gelora Raya—should have a separate environmental impact document.

There are also clear signs of violations at the Alderwood Residence project. This development does not have a proper runoff water management system, and it does not have a sediment trap, which would allow solid materials from the flowing water to settle out. As a result, sediment in the Ciangsana River, a tributary of the Bekasi River, accumulates more quickly.

These violations should be a good basis for the Environment Ministry to take legal action against the two developers. But when enforcing the law, the government needs to consider the consumers who have already purchased houses. They must not lose out. The developers must take full responsibility and provide compensation for the purchasers.

After this, the changes in land use in around river basins must be stopped. The large-scale changes in land use upstream of the Bekasi River in the last decade must not be allowed to continue. The area of open land upstream, which can no longer retain rainwater, has increased sharply from 6.71 million hectares in 2013 to 7.62 million hectares in 2023.

And more concerning, vegetation cover—meaning natural plant growth—in the upper reaches of the Bekasi River now only covers 21.24 percent of the 145,952 hectare Bekasi River basin. This is far below the minimal 30 percent that is necessary to preserve the balance of the ecosystem. And sufficient vegetation coverage is crucial to maintain the water absorption capacity and to prevent erosion.

The government has no choice but to restore the upstream river basin in order to ensure that major flooding in Jakarta, Bogor, Bekasi, and Karawang does not become a recurring disaster.

Read the Complete Story in Tempo English Magazine

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