Urban resilience to floods in parts of Makassar, Indonesia

Abstract

Makassar – the largest and fastest growing area in eastern Indonesia – experienced significant number of damages and losses due to recurrent floods. In early 2019, the flood disaster exposed the urbanized area and inundated 1,658 houses and caused 9,328 impacted population. These figures imply that Makassar needs to create concerted efforts to improve its currently low resilience to floods. This study was designed to assess the urban resilience to floods in Makassar to provide the government with reference for evaluation and identify the most contributing factors to the resilience. In this context, resilience was assessed in four urban systems, namely physical, social, economic, and institutional, in every unit of analysis, i.e., flood-affected districts. The research data included building density, green open space, population density, the number of economically disadvantaged households, community’s subsistence funds, and the availability of early warning systems and disaster emergency stations. The physical, social, economic, institutional, and equal scenarios of resilience were modeled using the Spatial Multi-Criteria Evaluation (SMCE). The results showed that the districts in Makassar were moderately resilient to floods and that the resilience of each urban system shaped the overall resilience. Tamalate and Rappocini sub districts had the lowest resilience values, whereas Manggala was estimated as the most highly resilient district in several scenarios.