A Conceptual Framework for Flood Impact Mitigation through Transboundary River Management

Despite efforts to manage floods and reduce their impacts, trends show a steady rise in the frequency of floods experienced around the world. The number of people affected and economic impacts are growing. Evidence from Jakarta, Indonesia's capital city, demonstrates this growing flood trend, where the impacts of floods have increased in severity in recent years. Major floods in 1996, 1999, 2002, 2007, 2013, and 2014 resulted in unprecedented levels of damage. In January 2013, floods displaced 40,000 people and incurred 775 million US Dollars in damages. Recent floods in January 2020 resulted in 66 deaths and displaced 36,000 people, exemplifying the scale of this serious problem. Increased flooding is caused by physical, social, economic, and political drivers. These drivers are multiple, interrelated, and interacting, meaning that to address flooding successfully, a holistic and integrated approach is required, with coordinated action between institutions and across sectors. Such calls for unified flood management are reflected across Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and Integrated Flood Risk Management (IFRM) principles. Contemporary IFRM acknowledges that activities within a river basin are interconnected and interdependent, as such, they should be coordinated across the basin. It also recognizes that a spectrum of actions is required to address the diversity of flood risk drivers and promotes traditional 'hard' engineering in combination with 'softer' measures (for example, sustainable planning and development) in order to address flooding holistically. The Ciliwung River is an example of a transboundary river that flows through Jakarta. In total, the river passes through two provinces (West Java and the Special Region of Jakarta) and four municipalities (Bogor Regency, Bogor City, Depok City, and Jakarta City). Indonesia's decentralized government system means that each of these municipalities has the authority to make its plans and address its priorities. Decentralization has also resulted in more institutions responsible for flood management distributed across various levels of governance (national, provincial, municipal). Although decentralization can contribute to good governance, it can also lead to fragmentation of policies and plans, both horizontally across different administrations and vertically between levels of governance. This fragmentation presents a particular concern for coordinated management of flood risk. A conceptual framework was developed to support the generation of improved river governance and flood management plans for the Ciliwung Basin. The framework aims to highlight the key concepts relevant to the management of flooding in the CRB and seeks to identify any relationships between them. The framework was developed as part of the project 'Mitigating hydrometeorological hazard impacts through improved transboundary river management in the Ciliwung River Basin'. This three-year interdisciplinary project aims to understand how transboundary river governance arrangements in the CRB influence flood hazard impacts and develop plans for improved transboundary governance arrangements to manage the floods. The conceptual framework is structured around three key areas: flood risk drivers, flood impacts, and transboundary governance and river management. Key concepts were identified through a literature review. Flood risk drivers were identified from an initial literature search using relevant search terms, including 'flood risk', 'drivers', 'causes of flooding'. A second search into each driver itself was carried out to gain greater depth. Each term was then searched in conjunction with the following terms: 'Ciliwung River', 'Jakarta', 'Indonesia' to identify any previous research conducted at the study location. The same method was applied to identify flood impacts, using relevant search terms such as 'flood impacts', 'socio-economic', 'environmental', 'human'. A review of literature relating to transboundary governance and river management was then conducted, drawing upon Savenije and van der Zaag's framework for sharing international waters.