Maladaptation on the Waterfront: Jakarta’s Growth Coalition and the Great Garuda

Abstract

The capital city of Indonesia, Jakarta, faces chronic flooding which has been and will continue to be exacerbated by climate change processes, including sea level rise and increased rainfall. In response to these threats, the government has devised a megaproject solution to flooding which will simultaneously address the problem while enhancing Jakarta's status as a 'world city', improving the economy of the metropolitan region and the country as a whole. However, the so-called Great Garuda project has a number of major flaws. We describe how this project fails to address the root causes of flooding in Jakarta as well as the primary drivers of vulnerability to flooding. We further show how the Great Garuda project is a channel through which politically connected economic elites of the Suharto regime, now marginalized by democratization and decentralization reforms, can reconstitute 'growth coalitions' to benefit from state resources and privileged access to development contracts and concessions. Lastly, we apply and expand on the concept of maladaptation to demonstrate how the project could leave the city and its residents more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than they currently are.

Mapping the adaptation solution space – lessons from Jakarta for other coastal cities

“…Second, the narrowing of urban waterways due to informal settlements along the banks of the rivers, sedimentation and pollution with waste have further reduced water flow capacities and urban drainage (e.g., Mathewson, 2018). Third, land subsidence is a key driver of the city's flood problem because it exacerbates the impacts of precipitation and sea level rise (Salim et al, 2019). Today, 40 % of Jakarta's urban area lies below sea level Salim et al, 2019).…”

“…Third, land subsidence is a key driver of the city's flood problem because it exacerbates the impacts of precipitation and sea level rise (Salim et al, 2019). Today, 40 % of Jakarta's urban area lies below sea level Salim et al, 2019). Subsidence has four major drivers: excessive groundwater extraction, natural consolidation of soil, increasing infrastructure and building load, and tectonic activities (Abidin et al, 2015).…”

“…Publications which focus more on soft and hybrid adaptation as well as on social vulnerability issues (i.e., the green categories in Fig. 5) predominantly argue that the flooding problem is caused not only by the local topography, geology, tidal influence and regional climatic patterns that successively change in the course of climate change but alsopotentially even more so -by anthropogenic factors (Aerts et al, 2013;Akmalah and Grigg, 2011;Asdak et al, 2018;Batubara et al, 2018;Costa et al, 2016;Esteban et al, 2017;Firman et al, 2011;Hellman, 2015;Ichwatus Sholihah and Shaojun, 2018;Leitner and Sheppard, 2017;Marfai et al, 2015;Mathewson, 2018;Revilla Diez, 2018, 2019;Noviandi et al, 2017;Charles, 2018, 2019;Padawangi and Douglass, 2015;Rahayu et al, 2020;Salim et al, 2019;Sheppard, 2019;Simanjuntak et al, 2012;Varrani and Nones, 2018; ; Ward et al, 2011aWard et al, , 2013aWicaksono and Herdiansyah, 2019;Yoga Putra et al, 2019a;Yuliadi et al, 2016). Three of the most important and frequently mentioned anthropogenic factors are accelerating land subsidence (e.g., Andreas et al, 2019;Colven, 2017;Costa et al, 2016;Fitrinitia et al, 2018;Goh, 2019;Padawangi and Douglass, 2015;Salim et al, 2019;Sari et al, 2018;…”

“…5) mostly adopt a rather critical perspective on infrastructural solutions in general and on the Great Garuda project in particular. The latter is criticized to be a politically and economically driven, technocratic mega-project that fails to comprehensively address the flood problem (e.g., Colven, 2017;Octavianti and Charles, 2018;Salim et al, 2019). The respective studies do not argue that the project cannot provide any protection from flooding, but they are concerned that it addresses neither land subsidence nor other socio-economic factors contributing to flooding; it therefore does not present a comprehensive and sustainable solution to the flooding problem (e.g., Colven, 2017;Octavianti and Charles, 2019;Salim et al, 2019;Wade, 2019).…”

Income Inequality and Socioeconomic Segregation in Jakarta

“…Jakarta's contribution to Indonesia's GDP increased from 14.9% in 2000 to 16.7% in 2010 and 17.5% in 2016. Despite robust development and economic growth, Jakarta remains a place of poverty. The contrast between rich and poor is highly pronounced in many parts of the city (Prasetyanti 2015;Salim et al 2019). Many modern towers in Jakarta are surrounded by kampungs, which are unplanned, incrementally developed areas with small plots of land and low-quality building structures and materials and are often associated with slums (Winarso 2010).…”