An article by Nirmala Nair, The Jakarta Post.
Floods are a recurrence in most parts of the world and in Indonesia and other parts of Asia, millions of dollars are spent every year on flood-related mitigation programs.
Caught in short-term solutions and focused on “cemented, engineered” solutions, our urban landscapes have become perfect settings for floods.
While urban (and rural) landscapes are the scene of floods and other natural disasters, our experts and policymakers continue to overlook nature’s simple designs.
How does nature restore, rebalance, reenergize and revive the internal adaptive capacity to sustain life on our planet for millions of years? After all, we humans are the new kids on the block.
In our eagerness to outsmart nature, we continue to be caught up in models of climate change and tinker with technology as if we can change the course of nature through these mechanisms.
We continue our obsession with urbanization. Over-cemented urban landscapes, roads and buildings as those in Jakarta simply deprive soils of their absorptive capacity.
With not enough natural run-offs for rainwater to reach groundwater, heavy rainfall creates unnatural disruption to deal with excess water flows from over-cemented narrow canals and drains.
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