The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 03/23/2011
The rapid growth of Asian cities has not kept pace with the number of people who need clean water and proper sanitation, an expert says.
Densely populated urban areas in Indonesia still face obstacles in providing residents with clean water and adequate sanitation, Hubert Gijzen, the director of Unesco’s office in Jakarta, said on Tuesday.
“Ongoing rapid population increases in cities have impeded efforts to provide proper water and sanitation services for urban people, although progress has been made,” Hubert said.
Hubert made his comments on the sidelines of a discussion titled “Water for Cities: Responding to the Urban Challenges” held by the Public Works Ministry, the UN and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).
The discussion was held to celebrate World Water Day, observed on March 22.
According to the UN, the water supply in Indonesia’s rural areas increased to 71 percent last year, up from 62 percent in 1990.
On the contrary, the water supply to urban areas decreased to 89 percent last year, down from 92 percent in 1990, partially attributable to a vast increase in urban dwellers.
Gijzen said that finding innovative solutions to provide clean water was urgent given that the world’s population would top 7 billion later this year, half of whom would be concentrated in cities.
Public Works Minister Joko Kirmanto said urban populations in Indonesia had drastically increased from year to year, resulting in the massive exploitation of land and water resources, as well as increased pollution from household and industrial waste.
“We have developed water catchment areas and drainage systems to provide better access to clean water to urban communities and to protect them from flooding,” he told journalists.
Yet urban residents face unstable water supplies due to the improper use of water resources and massive land conversions. Many water catchment areas have been converted to residences or industrial complex.
Gijzen said developing sustainable urban water management practices required a paradigm shift and innovation.
Citing an example, he said that eco-hydrology was a simple engineering technique that offered an effective way to provide better access to clean water for people living in urban areas.
“It sounds like a difficult term, but eco-hydrology basically tries to intervene in water flows in rivers, lakes, or even in coastal areas, with very simple techniques. It will help water bodies to strengthen their purification activities,” he said.
In the Netherlands, for example, local governments bought land from farmers and developed dykes along the riverbanks. “They can spread out the water inside the rivers. The rivers will be biologically more active,” he said.
LIPI director Lukman Hakim said conventional approaches for managing water resources that focused on technical aspects were not enough to cope with water crises in urban areas.
“We need more sustainable and integrated approaches to preserve water resources,” he said.
Gijzen said that eco-hydrology could not be separated from two other important steps — rational water use and innovative water reuse — desperately needed to improve water management. (ebf)
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