Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to re-frame planning decision-making to address risks of flooding and to increase community resilience. Rapid urbanisation, fragmented governance and recurrent flooding complicate resolution of DKI Jakarta’s chronic housing shortage. Failure to effectively implement planning decision-making processes poses potential human rights violations. Contemporary planning policy requires the relocation of households living in floodplains within 15 m of DKI Jakarta’s main watercourses, further constraining land availability and potentially requiring increased densification.
Design/methodology/approach
– This paper presents a preliminary scoping study for a technologically enhanced participatory planning method, incorporating synthesis of existing information on urbanisation, governance and flood risk management in Jakarta.
Findings
– Responsibility for flood risk management in DKI Jakarta is fragmented both within and across administrative boundaries. Decision-making is further complicated by: limited availability of land use data; uncertainty as to the delineated extent of watercourses, floodplains and flood modelling; unclear risk and liability for infrastructure investments; and technical literacy of both public and government participants.
Practical implications
– This research provides information to facilitate consultation with government entities tasked with re-framing planning processes to increase public participation.
Social implications
– Potential increased opportunities for collaborative decision-making and consequent reduction in risk exposure amongst DKI Jakarta’s most vulnerable populations can help to address issues of social justice.
Originality/value
– This paper synthesises information from a range of sources not available in English, and offers insights into a complex system of governance and modes for improving decision-making.
Community perceptions of flood resilience hinge upon translation of impressions of events and built environment, which thereby influence a community's ability to resist, cope with and recover from adverse impacts of flooding. Particularly in developing countries, NGOs, often in collaboration with communities, design and fund non‐traditional structural measures to enhance community resilience. This study examines community perceptions of flood resilience in the Haor region of Bangladesh, where communities live on constructed islands, reinforced by structural flood mitigation measures. Wave activity due to riverine flooding places communities at significant risk, especially as NGO‐funded non‐traditional structural measures intended to increase resilience may fail to do so. Small group meetings with community members were facilitated in graphically depicting and discussing areas of risk and relative safety during flood events. Maps constructed by community groups indicate that perceptions of community vulnerability are shared between generations, and that measures intended to enhance resilience may actually increase community perceptions of vulnerability, highlighting a need for a more nuanced understanding of community adaptation to ongoing risk. Findings identified the use of non‐language‐dependent tools such as cognitive mapping as quick and effective data collection mechanisms. Incorporating this local knowledge allows for more effective targeted measures, increasing community resilience and better informing NGO practices.
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