Estimating the Flood, Landslide, and Heavy Rainfall Susceptibility of Vaccine Transportation after 2021 Flooding in South Kalimantan Province, Indonesia

Abstract

Vaccine accessibility and availability has been shown to be one of the key factors to ensure rapid responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased vaccine coverage is, however, dependent on vaccine supply and transportation, in particular ensuring that road networks have as minimal disruption as possible. In Indonesia, the most common and imminent threats affecting transport flows are due to frequent disasters such as floods, landslides, and high rainfall. This research is novel because it fills in the gap between health and disaster studies in COVID-19-related studies published since 2021. This study presents an analysis of susceptibility of various hydro-meteorological disasters on the trans-provincial roads that span over 856.014 km and cover an area of 38,744.23 km2 over 13 districts in South Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. The floods that occurred in January and November 2021 inundated an area of around 4000 km2 (10 percent of the total study area) that spans along 13 sub-provincial/district areas. Data collected are analyzed using the geographical information system (GIS) to quantify and classify the impacts in the 13 districts, utilizing different indicators such as topography, road conditions and characteristics, amount of rainfall, and types of disasters that occurred (floods and landslides). The results show that the trans-provincial road, which is also the only road available for transporting vaccines in the South Kalimantan Province, was highly susceptible to various hydro-meteorological disasters. Around 20 percent of the total road length was disrupted by the floods, close to 4% of the road section passes through mountainous areas that make it susceptible to landslides, and about 13% to 23% of the road section is vulnerable to slip risks due to the extreme rainfall. The results presented here demand an overarching solution involving multiple stakeholders from public works and local disaster management offices in terms of disaster mitigation and preparedness strategies, and environmental protection in terms of disaster risk reduction implementation. This research contributes to the health sector particularly through future preparedness to pandemics and wider vaccine distribution and coverage through the identification and mapping of sections of roads impacted by multiple disasters.