Green Infrastructures in Megacity Jakarta: Current Status and Possibilities of Mangroves for Flood Damage Mitigation

Abstract

AbstractJakarta is Southeast Asia’s most disaster-vulnerable city and recently has suffered from severe floods almost every year. Flood events have worsened mainly because of ground subsidence, reduction of green spaces, and littering into streams. The mangrove forests remaining in coastal urban areas of northern Jakarta can be utilized for mitigating flood damage. In the first two sections of this chapter, an overview of flood events is presented and the status of mangroves in Jakarta Bay is introduced. Mangroves may serve as hard and soft measures for disaster reduction. Because enlargement of the area of mangroves in urban Jakarta is difficult, in the last section, soft measures, especially the utilization of mangroves as an icon for disaster reduction, are proposed. Activities such as the incorporation of a mangrove design as a logo in documents of disaster prevention education may enhance citizens’ recognition of disaster risks because they will see both logos and mangroves repeatedly in real life.