Desktop Study on - Regional Climate Change Adaptation ...

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adaptation (2010). The adaptation strategies
suggested for government units focuses on water
related practices, whereas the ones addressed for the
community and household levels seem to emphasise
on capacity building in long term disaster response
and in short term coping practices, respectively.
Shown in Table 9 are some examples of the strategies
at all levels.
SUMMARY OF IDENTIFIED
KEY GAPS, CONSTRAINTS
AND CHALLENGES
Water Sector
Regardless of climate change effects, many
parts of Indonesia experience the reduction
of the quantity and quality of water resources
due to growing population, economic activities,
forest clearing, land use practices and improper
disposal of waste. For example, reservoirs and
ponds provide water to only about 10% of the
total existing irrigated area, and supply clean
water to 37% of the urban population but
only to 8% of the rural population (Republic
of Indonesia, 2007). This water shortage is
expected to increase due to climate change,
especially the decrease in rainfall. There
are several adaptation options that have
been suggested to fulfil the water demand
increased from these human- and climateinduced
water shortage, but these options
are of high concern since they may cause the
second and third consequences. For example,
the use of groundwater is suggested as one
adaptation option (Republic of Indonesia,
2007). Groundwater resources, however, are
particularly shallow and are vulnerable in
terms of quantity and quality, especially in
the dry season, and the excessive extraction of
groundwater, mainly because of the industrial
use, may lead to land subsidence that would
result in increasing the risk for flood and the
intrusion of salt water (Republic of Indonesia,
2007).
In addition, despite the existing studies that
demonstrates both human- and climate-related
causes of water shortage and sea level rise, the
suggested adaptation strategies revolve around
the options that addresses scientific knowledge
on the expected impacts of climate change, but
not to emphasise on changing socio-economic
as well as ecological environments. The
Ministry of Environment (2007) recommends
reducing scientific uncertainties surrounding
the climate change effects through the collection
of long-term historical data on hydrological and
meteorological phenomena and validating all
climatic models and techniques. Meanwhile,
the sea level rise in Indonesia is expected to be
greater with continuous coastal erosion, which
is actually associated with socio-economic
development such as the interruption of the
along-shore sand transport through physical
structures, circulating currents generated by
seawalls, the decrease of sediment from rivers
caused by construction of many dams in the
upstream regions, coral or sand mining and
deforestation of mangrove forests (Ministry of
Environment, 2007). However, these human
activities that have partially affected the sea
level rise are not embodied in the governmental
policies yet.
Agriculture and Food Security Sector
Although information on ENSO forecasts is
generally available in Indonesia, the access to
information is not well established yet so that
farmers cannot take precautions measures
before the draught events (Keil et al., 2008).
Also, climate models that are accurate for
mountainous regions such as Central Sulawesi
need to be developed, addressing the local
context.
Moreover, most of the farmers from this region
rely on non-technical irrigation systems with an
irregular supply of water and the cropping and
irrigation schedule at the village level is not well
coordinated (ibid). The land with non-technical
irrigation facilities often faces the droughtinduced
reduction of rice yield. Given that the
access to credit or a high level of technical
efficiency in their agricultural production
results in a higher level of drought resilience,
the technical and financial assistances for the
farmers should be taken into consideration.
In addition, there are limited adaptive capacity
of the farmers in certain upland regions whose
soil cover is eroded due to erratic rainfall or
drought, as well as lack of well-coordinated
system of water distribution from upstream to
downstream areas, for which renders farmers
in downstream more exposed to climate change
effects especially during a long dry season
(UNDP Indonesia, 2007).
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