De- and Re-politicisation of Water Security as Examined Through the Lens of the Hydrosocial Cycle: The Case of Jakarta?s Sea Wall Plan

This article asks how the pursuit of major engineering works causes changes in existing water-society relations. We employ the concept of the hydrosocial cycle postulated by Linton and Budds (2014) as an analytical framework and draw specific insights from political ecology and science and technology studies (STS). Using as a case study a sea wall megaproject plan in Jakarta, Indonesia, we find that such a project can depoliticise the city?s water security issues by rendering them technical and by dehumanising citizens and discounting the future. Using scientific language and logic, policymakers discourage the exploration of alternatives other than the sea wall. To repoliticise these water issues, we mobilise the concept of the hydrosocial cycle and tailor it to the context of large infrastructure. We identify departure points that may improve the current socio-natural process in Jakarta, particularly the empowerment of the middle class to voice their project-related concerns, and the recognition of the different capacities of each group in society to adapt to water-related hazards

A review of 80 assessment tools measuring water security

© 2021 The Authors. WIREs Water published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. Scholars and practitioners have been working on methodologies to measure water security at a variety of scale and focus. In this paper, we critically examine the landscape of water security metrics, discussing the progress and gaps of this rich scholarship. We reviewed a total of 107 publications consisting of 17 conceptual papers and 90 methodological papers that propose 80 metrics to measure water security and observed that there are two dominant research clusters in this field: experiential scale-based metrics and resource-based metrics. The former mainly focus on measuring the water experiences of households and its impact on human well-being, while the majority of the latter assess freshwater availability or water resources security. We compare their approaches and the arguments used to develop them. We posit that the more local the scale and the more specific the water domain, the more meaningful results that the metrics can provide. Acknowledging the interrelationship between different water domains (e.g., water resources and water hazards) is important, but their aggregation for measurement may be problematic. We offer our views on future work in this field relating to topics beyond water, the need to conduct validation tests, and collaboration among academics and with other stakeholders. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Human Water

Spatial heterogeneity in the response of winter wheat yield to meteorological dryness/wetness variations in Henan province, China

Knowledge of the responses of winter wheat yield to meteorological dryness/wetness variations is crucial for reducing yield losses in Henan province, China’s largest winter wheat production region, under the background of climate change. Data on climate, yield and atmospheric circulation indices were collected from 1987 to 2017, and monthly self-calibrating Palmer drought severity index (sc-PDSI) values were calculated during the winter wheat growing season. The main results were as follows: (1) Henan could be partitioned into four sub-regions, namely, western, central-western, central-northern and eastern regions, based on the evolution characteristics of the time series of winter wheat yield in 17 cities during the period of 1988–2017. Among them, winter wheat yield was high and stable in the central-northern and eastern regions, with a remarkable increasing trend (p < 0.05). (2) The sc-PDSI in February had significantly positive impacts on climate-driven winter wheat yield in the western and central-western regions (p < 0.05), while the sc-PDSI in December and the sc-PDSI in May had significantly negative impacts on climate-driven winter wheat yield in the central-northern and eastern regions, respectively (p < 0.05). (3) There were time-lag relationships between the sc-PDSI for a specific month and the atmospheric circulation indices in the four sub-regions. Furthermore, we constructed multifactorial models based on selected atmospheric circulation indices, and they had the ability to simulate the sc-PDSI for a specific month in the four sub-regions. These findings will provide scientific references for meteorological dryness/wetness monitoring and risk assessments of winter wheat production

Spatial integration framework of solar, wind, and hydropower energy potential in Southeast Asia

Amid its massive increase in energy demand, Southeast Asia has pledged to increase its use of renewable energy by up to 23% by 2025. Geospatial technology approaches that integrate statistical data, spatial models, earth observation satellite data, and climate modeling can be used to conduct strategic analyses for understanding the potential and efficiency of renewable energy development. This study aims to create the first spatial model of its kind in Southeast Asia to develop multi-renewable energy from solar, wind, and hydropower, further broken down into residential and agricultural areas. The novelty of this study is the development of a new priority model for renewable energy development resulting from the integration of area suitability analysis and the estimation of the amount of potential energy. Areas with high potential power estimations for the combination of the three types of energy are mostly located in northern Southeast Asia. Areas close to the equator, have a lower potential than the northern countries, except for southern regions. Solar photovoltaic (PV) plant construction is the most area-intensive type of energy generation among the considered energy sources, requiring 143,901,600 ha (61.71%), followed by wind (39,618,300 ha; 16.98%); a combination of solar PV and wind (37,302,500 ha; 16%); hydro (7,665,200 ha; 3.28%); a combination of hydro and solar PV (3,792,500 ha; 1.62%); and a combination of hydro and wind (582,700 ha; 0.25%). This study is timely and important because it will inform policies and regional strategies for transitioning to renewable energy, with consideration of the different characteristics present in Southeast Asia

Spatial integration framework of solar, wind, and hydropower energy potential in Southeast Asia

Amid its massive increase in energy demand, Southeast Asia has pledged to increase its use of renewable energy by up to 23% by 2025. Geospatial technology approaches that integrate statistical data, spatial models, earth observation satellite data, and climate modeling can be used to conduct strategic analyses for understanding the potential and efficiency of renewable energy development. This study aims to create the first spatial model of its kind in Southeast Asia to develop multi-renewable energy from solar, wind, and hydropower, further broken down into residential and agricultural areas. The novelty of this study is the development of a new priority model for renewable energy development resulting from the integration of area suitability analysis and the estimation of the amount of potential energy. Areas with high potential power estimations for the combination of the three types of energy are mostly located in northern Southeast Asia. Areas close to the equator, have a lower potential than the northern countries, except for southern regions. Solar photovoltaic (PV) plant construction is the most area-intensive type of energy generation among the considered energy sources, requiring 143,901,600 ha (61.71%), followed by wind (39,618,300 ha; 16.98%); a combination of solar PV and wind (37,302,500 ha; 16%); hydro (7,665,200 ha; 3.28%); a combination of hydro and solar PV (3,792,500 ha; 1.62%); and a combination of hydro and wind (582,700 ha; 0.25%). This study is timely and important because it will inform policies and regional strategies for transitioning to renewable energy, with consideration of the different characteristics present in Southeast Asia

The illusion of solution? The politics of Jakarta’s quest to achieve water security

The increasing number of large water infrastructures built or planned worldwide denotes the (re)turn to a hydraulic mission in water management. Infrastructures are pursued mainly for water supply augmentation and flood control, that is, delivering water security for the people especially in packed urban areas. Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, has pressing water issue as the city is experiencing land subsidence. Combined with sea level rise and perennial flooding problem, the city’s risk of sinking is extremely high. Following a major flood in 2013, the Government of Indonesia launched the NCICD (National Capital Integrated Coastal Development) plan to close Jakarta Bay with a 32-km length offshore sea wall for flood control defence. The plan also includes 5,100 hectares of land reclamation (located between the coastal line and the seawall), which was said, to fund the seawall construction. Such a megaproject whose total costs is estimated at USD 40 billion will significantly alter the biophysical as well as the social landscape of Jakarta. This thesis investigates the socio-political dynamics behind this megastructure from historical institutionalism and political ecology lenses, in which both anchored on power relations. Framing the overall discussion using ‘water security’ approach, it asks: How do relations of power drive large infrastructure investments in Jakarta, and how does this contribute and respond to the problem of water security? Data collection primarily included 48 key informant interviews, around 400 newspaper articles and secondary data (archives and policy documents). In order to analyse these diverse data sources, I employed three types of data analyses accordingly: historical analysis for historical data, thematic analysis for interviews and policy documents, and discourse analysis for newspaper articles. This research reveals that NCICD has advanced the infrastructural pathway in Jakarta’s flood policy which has been established since the colonial times. NCICD as a contemporary project is, thus, a product of the past. Furthermore, rather than dealing with complex institutional challenges associated with multiple water sectors, the government instead focuses on the seawall, which only deals with the flooding issue as a symptom of sinking, rendering the highly political issue apolitical. Reflecting on the power asymmetries manifested in NCICD and situating them on broader literature on water security, I conclude that the politics of water security, in the context of water hazards, is the politics of fear and in consequently meeting demand for security through the prescription of infrastructure. Fear is built from memories of past floods and ultimately from the construction of future uncertainties, where our knowledge is limited. </p

Rethinking water security: How does flooding fit into the concept?

Since first introduced in 2000, ‘water security’ has grown into a vibrant research area, with the majority of studies examining water supply security. Although protection to water-related hazards is recognised as a dimension in water security, only a few scholars have explicitly put flood-related research under the banner of water security. This paper seeks to theorise the position of flooding in the water security conception using the securitisation lens, which also influenced early works in the water security field. Securitisation is a process of perceiving an issue as a threat, enabling the pursuit of extraordinary measures outside normal politics. I find that water supply security and flood security have the same theoretical root: fear of an unknown future. They are based on the notion that threats to the shortage of water and surplus of water, respectively, create the need for robust policies, which often translate into climate-proofing infrastructures. Here I propose a conceptual tool to assess the likelihood of a threat to undergo a securitisation process and to help answer why a threat was securitised while others not. This tool is deployed to examine the case of flooding and sinking in Jakarta, Indonesia

The illusion of solution? The politics of Jakartaâs quest to achieve water security

The increasing number of large water infrastructures built or planned worldwide denotes the (re)turn to a hydraulic mission in water management. Infrastructures are pursued mainly for water supply augmentation and flood control, that is, delivering water security for the people especially in packed urban areas. Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, has pressing water issue as the city is experiencing land subsidence. Combined with sea level rise and perennial flooding problem, the cityâs risk of sinking is extremely high. Following a major flood in 2013, the Government of Indonesia launched the NCICD (National Capital Integrated Coastal Development) plan to close Jakarta Bay with a 32-km length offshore sea wall for flood control defence. The plan also includes 5,100 hectares of land reclamation (located between the coastal line and the seawall), which was said, to fund the seawall construction. Such a megaproject whose total costs is estimated at USD 40 billion will significantly alter the biophysical as well as the social landscape of Jakarta. This thesis investigates the socio-political dynamics behind this megastructure from historical institutionalism and political ecology lenses, in which both anchored on power relations. Framing the overall discussion using âwater securityâ approach, it asks: How do relations of power drive large infrastructure investments in Jakarta, and how does this contribute and respond to the problem of water security? Data collection primarily included 48 key informant interviews, around 400 newspaper articles and secondary data (archives and policy documents). In order to analyse these diverse data sources, I employed three types of data analyses accordingly: historical analysis for historical data, thematic analysis for interviews and policy documents, and discourse analysis for newspaper articles. This research reveals that NCICD has advanced the infrastructural pathway in Jakartaâs flood policy which has been established since the colonial times. NCICD as a contemporary project is, thus, a product of the past. Furthermore, rather than dealing with complex institutional challenges associated with multiple water sectors, the government instead focuses on the seawall, which only deals with the flooding issue as a symptom of sinking, rendering the highly political issue apolitical. Reflecting on the power asymmetries manifested in NCICD and situating them on broader literature on water security, I conclude that the politics of water security, in the context of water hazards, is the politics of fear and in consequently meeting demand for security through the prescription of infrastructure. Fear is built from memories of past floods and ultimately from the construction of future uncertainties, where our knowledge is limited. </p

The evolution of Jakarta’s flood policy over the past 400 years: The lock-in of infrastructural solutions

This paper presents an analysis of the evolution of flood policy in a city in the developing world. Jakarta was selected in order to analyse the role of colonialisation on water policy. Drawing data from historical sources and interviews of key informants, we mapped the history of flood-related investments made in the city for the past 400 years. Using analysis informed by historical institutionalism, we argue that Jakarta’s flood management institutions have been locked-in to infrastructural measures. Some major flood events were able to create critical junctures, resulting in the implementation of old policies and the instigation of flood research. However, they were not able to introduce institutional changes. The persistence of engineering-driven solutions to cope with flooding can be explained by the positive feedback mechanisms taking place after major floods. Infrastructure, albeit expensive, provides a fast relief to flooding, which is ideal to short political cycles. Scientific knowledge introduced by the colonial government plays an important role in sustaining this persistence. The current massive seawall proposal to alleviate increasing flood risks due to land subsidence and sea level rise exacerbates the path dependency of infrastructural measures