Living in a Bottomless Pit: Households’ Responses to Land Subsidence, an Example from Indonesia

Abstract

Land subsidence has severe physical and economic implications for both areas and people. Numerous scholars have shown that land subsidence has had massive impacts at global, national and regional levels, and that the impacts were usually responded to by the government. However, little attention has been paid to what land subsidence means to people's daily lives and how much it costs them. To fill that gap, this article draws on empirical research carried out in three areas in Indonesia to provide a better understanding of what land subsidence means to households, and how they respond to the consequences and how much it costs them to do so. An analysis of a survey of 330 households shows that they have been suffering from various severities of impacts of land subsidence for an extended period. Whereas some of the households respond to the impacts by making small preparations or adapting to the damages, others can do nothing due to a lack of money and their continuously declining earning capacity. Thus, the affected households are effectively throwing money into a bottomless pit. We argue that these households must escape the vicious circle caused by land subsidence by increasing their income capacity or even abandoning the affected areas.

Beyond Fires and Deforestation: Tackling Land Subsidence in Peatland Areas, a Case Study from Riau, Indonesia

“…Peat subsidence may trigger more complex problems since it leads to and is led by other peatland problems [5,9,12,17]. Even though peat subsidence happens on a massive scale for an extended period and undermines the income earning capacity of people [9,55], peat subsidence in itself has never been a top concern of actors in managing peatland. The most commonly and intensely debated issues are peat fires and deforestation, which led to a massive loss of ecosystem, serious health problems, and frequent land tenure conflicts between community and company [14,49,66,68,69,81].…”

“…Besides oil palm, Riau also contributes to 72.85 percent of total pulp and paper production and leads coconut plantations in Indonesia, with about 515 thousand hectares [53,54]. The combination of the growth of these plantations has caused severe problems, such as deforestation, fires, and peat subsidence, followed by a decrease in the economic status of affected people [7][8][9]55].…”

“…As an indirect impact, during the rainy season, peat subsidence expanded flooding in the agricultural areas, which increased the costs to the agricultural sector [9]. At the household level, it damaged houses (i.e., cracking, sinking, and leaning) and undermined income earning capacity of affected households [10,55]. Peat subsidence is a serious issue since it needs a complete restoration through methods like maintaining the level of groundwater level and reducing subsidence through drainage and water conservation and management [71].…”

“…Peat subsidence also undermined the income earning capacity of affected people [55], so some NGOs offered activities to increase income capacity and income source variety of those affected. Wetlands International Indonesia and Jikalahari proposed a community-based planting system, 'paludiculture', which combined local commodities with non-peat-based income sources, such as livestock.…”

“…The oil and coconut palm plantations had dried out due to canals drying out, and had caused improper growth or death of the palms. The damage had decreased the income of affected people [55]. Therefore, to avoid a bigger loss, communities rehabilitated the canals by patching the leakages to maintain depth and managing the water table balance in plantations using a traditional canal block.…”