Rita Padawangi

Changing the Course of Rivers in an Asian City: Linking Landscapes to Human Benefits through Iterative Modeling and Design†

Concerns over water scarcity, climate change, and environmental health risks have prompted some Asian cities to invest in river rehabilitation, but deciding on the end goals of rehabilitation is a complex undertaking. We propose a multidisciplinary framework linking riparian landscape change to human well-being, providing information relevant to decision makers, in a format that facilitates stakeholder involvement. We illustrate this through a case study of the densely settled, environmentally degraded, and flood prone Ciliwung River flowing through metropolitan Jakarta, Indonesia. Our methodology attempts to respond to this complexity through an iterative approach, strongly based on conceptualization and mathematical modeling. Nested hydrologic, hydrodynamic, and water quality models provide outputs at catchment-, corridor-, and localized site-scales. Advanced 3-D landscape modeling is used for procedural design and precise visualization of proposed changes and their impacts, as predicted by the mathematical models. Finally, participatory planning and design methods allow us to obtain critical stakeholder feedback in shaping a socially acceptable approach. Our framework aims at demonstrating that a change in paradigm in river rehabilitation is possible, and providing future scenarios that balance concerns over flooding, water quality, and ecology, with the realities of a rapidly growing megacity.

The politics of learning from a small city: Solo as translocal model and political launch pad

ABSTRACT Joko Widodo (‘Jokowi’), mayor of the small Indonesian city of Solo (also officially known as Surakarta) between 2005 and 2012, was subsequently elected as governor of Jakarta and then as president of the Republic of Indonesia. This paper examines aspects of Jokowi’s political journey that speak to urban/regional studies debates on the politics of inter-municipal learning. It shows how the emergence of Solo as a ‘best-practice city’ in translocal learning networks enabled small-city civic boosterism and provided a launch pad for Jokowi’s electability in Jakarta. Implications of translocal learning at the ‘sending’ end are thus shown to extend beyond matters of local political legitimacy.

Muddy Resistance: Community Empowerment in Mudflow Disaster Governance in Porong, Sidoarjo, Indonesia

Mainstream disaster governance strategies and mechanisms place an emphasis on material and quantifiable losses in order to determine the amount of material or financial compensation. Calling for a humanistic approach to respond to disasters, this chapter examines how space becomes tools of community empowerment in a continuing disaster. Data used in the analysis are obtained through ethnographic interviews and participant observation of social movements on Lapindo mudflow as well as news articles related to the disaster in the span of several years until the year 2014. The mudflow as a unique prolonged disaster in the context of disjointed, seemingly negotiated government bureaucracies that tend to favour corporations with powerful actors sheds light on the importance of building community resilience by focusing on livelihoods rather than by emphasising on compensation and other temporary interventions. Embracing environmental disaster spaces as part of everyday life that encompasses culture and economy is an alternative disaster governance approach that puts people as the priority, as active members of society rather than victims. While the conditions on the ground are very much nuanced, the focus on human flourishing is in line with empowerment for the long term by constructing social identity, interactions and relationships as resilient communities.

Bringing people closer to water: integrating water management and urban infrastructure

New stormwater management approaches that integrate water management with urban planning and design increasingly encompass social objectives. However, the principles and concepts upon which they are based do not provide sufficient guidance and analysis on how water is perceived as a sociological factor. The objective of the paper is to develop a Sociological Framework for evaluating and guiding the incorporation of sociological dimensions into water sensitive design programmes and projects, and demonstrate the applicability of the framework through the evaluation of the Bedok Reservoir project under Singapores ABC Waters Programme. The framework covers the domains of awareness and behaviour, social cohesion, and interactions. The framework can assist researchers and policy-makers in better understanding and integrating sociological dimensions in water sensitive design.

Building Knowledge, Negotiating Expertise: Participatory Water Supply Advocacy and Service in Globalizing Jakarta

Urban water supply is a domain of expertise for which “best practices” have been dominated by states and financial institutions that are directly involved in infrastructure building. This leads to the implementation of decontextualized ideas and a transfer of knowledge from one place to another. Current urban water supply challenges and the social and cultural values of water are the background of this article to examine the role of participatory approaches in building knowledge and expertise in urban water management. This article asks three questions: (1) How does community participation help maintain water management in a particular neighborhood? (2) How does participation contribute to water accessibility in the long term? (3) How do these participatory efforts interact with the mainstream expertise and knowledge building in urban water management? It explores the main topic and these three questions with Jakarta as a case study. Specific attention is given to the experiences of urban poor communities in Jakarta in conducting participatory approaches for the provision and distribution of water, because problems in accessing safe drinking water are often most obvious in poor neighborhoods of the city. Embedded in the analysis is the discussion of the democratization of expertise in urban infrastructure. The case study shows that rather than challenging the dominant urban water management discourse, community participation coexists with the state and the private sector and coshapes the understandings of water expertise in the city. Through service-oriented participation and advocacy-oriented participation, communities could build knowledge and negotiate expertise about water management through their experiences. However, at the moment it is still unlikely that these participatory approaches would challenge the dominant urban water management paradigm.

Changing the course of rivers in Asian cities: Linking riparian landscapes to human benefits through iterative modeling and design

Concerns over water scarcity, climate change, and environmental health risks have prompted some Asian cities to invest in river rehabilitation, but deciding on the end goals of rehabilitation is a complex undertaking. We propose a multidisciplinary framework linking riparian landscape change to human well-being, providing information relevant to decision makers, in a format that facilitates stakeholder involvement. We illustrate this through a case study of the densely settled, environmentally degraded, and flood prone Ciliwung River flowing through metropolitan Jakarta, Indonesia. Our methodology attempts to respond to this complexity through an iterative approach, strongly based on conceptualization and mathematical modeling. Nested hydrologic, hydrodynamic, and water quality models provide outputs at catchment-, corridor-, and localized site-scales. Advanced 3-D landscape modeling is used for procedural design and precise visualization of proposed changes and their impacts, as predicted by the mathematical models. Finally, participatory planning and design methods allow us to obtain critical stakeholder feedback in shaping a socially acceptable approach. Our framework aims at demonstrating that a change in paradigm in river rehabilitation is possible, and providing future scenarios that balance concerns over flooding, water quality, and ecology, with the realities of a rapidly growing megacity.

Changing the course of rivers in an Asian city: Linking landscapes to human benefits through iterative modeling and design: Linking Landscapes to Human Benefits through Iterative Modeling and Design

Concerns over water scarcity, climate change, and environmental health risks have prompted some Asian cities to invest in river rehabilitation, but deciding on the end goals of rehabilitation is a complex undertaking. We propose a multidisciplinary framework linking riparian landscape change to human well-being, providing information relevant to decision makers, in a format that facilitates stakeholder involvement. We illustrate this through a case study of the densely settled, environmentally degraded, and flood prone Ciliwung River flowing through metropolitan Jakarta, Indonesia. Our methodology attempts to respond to this complexity through an iterative approach, strongly based on conceptualization and mathematical modeling. Nested hydrologic, hydrodynamic, and water quality models provide outputs at catchment-, corridor-, and localized site-scales. Advanced 3-D landscape modeling is used for procedural design and precise visualization of proposed changes and their impacts, as predicted by the mathematical models. Finally, participatory planning and design methods allow us to obtain critical stakeholder feedback in shaping a socially acceptable approach. Our framework aims at demonstrating that a change in paradigm in river rehabilitation is possible, and providing future scenarios that balance concerns over flooding, water quality, and ecology, with the realities of a rapidly growing megacity.