Sumber Brantas Watershed is one out of five sub catchments of the Upper Brantas River, situated in Batu District, East Java, Indonesia and covering an area about 174 km 2. Recently, the hydrology of the watershed was considered to be degraded in terms of the quality and quantity of water yield. Fast floods were more often during the rainy seasons, while droughts were more severe during the dry seasons. Much spring water dried out in the dry seasons and two-third of them dried out permanently in the last decade. The condition was often related to the rapid change of landuse in the watershed. The natural forest and agroforestry gardens were converted into rain fed agriculture. Analysis on land sat images from 1989 and 2002 showed that 3,702ha of natural forest and 1,153ha of agroforestry gardens has disappeared. Further analysis showed that the area of rain fed agriculture, settlements and shrubs were increasing during that period. This most likely related to the socio-economics conditions of local community as well as the variability of stakeholders" perception in best watershed management planning and practices. The Rapid Hydrological Appraisal (RHA) implementation at the Sumber Brantas Watershed aimed to test the methodology, which is claimed to be rapid and cheap, and to validate the GenRiver Model-an important component of the methodology, to learn the stakeholders" perceptions on the watershed management and to build an understanding among stakeholders in order to select the best watershed management practices. RHA itself is claimed as a rapid and cheap methodology that is important in the early steps of an environmental service activity. The method consists of three stages i.e. scooping, awareness and identifying partners. Scooping and identifying partners were reflected from Comparing the simulated discharge using the GenRiver model to the actual field measurement shows a poor relation. The measured discharge data collected by PJT 1 (Perum Jasa Tirta I) seems to have unexpected trends that cannot be explained well by the available supporting data such as rainfall data. However, the simulated discharge upon some landuse scenarios indicates some acceptable preferences compared to the actual field condition. In conclusion, the similarity of perception among stakeholders in the watershed will give chance to find the best management plan and practices in the near future. But there is still a problem to bring the stakeholders to sit together discussing their opinion, perception and hope on the future of the watershed. An appropriate system and mechanism of coordination and communication among stakeholders is certainly needed to build better understanding of the watershed. Environmental service mechanism can be potentially developed in Sumber Brantas watershed, since the early initiative has been explored and practiced by some stakeholders, such as Perum Jasa Tirta I.
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