Risk Reduction, A Solution Against Juwana River Flood

“For us, flood is an usual thing. This is the second flood happened in 2009. A problem for us is our rice field which should have been ready in a week, but it  was totally flooded and for sure will leave nothing”  
---- Head of Kosean Village, Gabus Sub-district– Pati- Central Java.

What Kosean Village Head said above was spoken out in the workshop of Fixed Revision of Disaster Mitigation Procedure (January 6’ 2009) in Regional Development Agency office in Pati. His statement showed that procedure was not an urgent matter. The statement meant a lot. First, the village head was about betting his position as the workshop was not a proper forum to speak out about people’s problem related with the flood. He was aware that he might be offended by other participants since he brought other topic into the workshop. In fact, the Kosean Village Head just did what he thought should be done. He felt that local government did not pay attention toward people’s problem. Government officers usually only visit and provided logistic support. Logistic support was not the urgent one. The main concern of people during the flood was harvest failure instead of logistic supply.

Second, the Kosean Villages Head was showing main problem of people. It was not flood, which stay for long time, but the flood that destroyed their livelihood. Rice crops which almost ready had been flooded. People’s capital for planting rice, which usually got from loan, was destroyed.

All peasants who live along the Juwana River faced that second problem. Most of peasant who were interviewed by the writer said “We do not mind always be flooded as long as it happened after our harvest”

That statement often be heard, even in the midst of official forums, which engage government officials and or Legislative Representatives. Peasant group and local government who live along the Juwana River once suggested to government for comprehensive step of response. The comprehensive response consisted of rescheduling of rice planting, and other applicable programs. However, the peasant never got fruitful response from the government.

 Different Mind Set
There was a big difference between what people understood and acted toward the regular flood, compared with Pati’s Regional Government. People’s perspective said main problem of the flood was crops failure, while the government responded it by focusing on logistic distribution (rice and instant noodles). 

In fact, people have capacity to adapt with the flood. People have applied certain pattern to live side by side by with the flood. Unfortunately, government seemed ignore that potential. Government construction project in Juwana River area did not consider regular flood as their constraints of development plan.

Most people who have prepared themselves for flood (floating cage, high balcony to save their logistics and their kitchen) preferred staying at home rather than had to go to some evacuation points. However, government often took that condition as an excuse for not providing mobile health service. Government health service usually stayed in one place like community hall or some other place near by village main street, while people stayed at home and surrounded by water/ flood. Since not many people came to get health service due to limited transportation and other factors, government then claimed that few of survivors faced health problems.  

The writer found many survivors who faced various health problems, when he was joining mobile health service of SHEEP. Some health problem found like skin disease, diarrhea, psychosomatic, etc.  Many health problems weren’t noticed due to limited access of health service from the government. The condition above was worsened by unclear understanding within people about what health is? And what ill is? Illness or health commonly be measured from occurred symptoms, in fact, same symptoms might indicate different illness.  

Alternative Solution offered
Flood in villages along Juwana River has become a routine moment, which could not be avoided. This happened because of high sedimentation and river constriction caused by various factors like deforestation, land miss use and high density of rainfall. Geographically, Pati’s area which located along Juwana River is lowland, whose many spawn and cavities, therefore flood could not be avoided. From the fact above, the most suitable approach dealing with that was Risk Reduction (RR) method. One principle of RR was same as said by the Kosead Village Head which was: flood is fine as long as people could save their harvest.

General concept of RR is how to reduce risk and how to strengthen people’s capacity. People with low capacity would be very vulnerable from disaster. Meanwhile people with good capacity would be able to survive from disaster, no matter how big the disaster was. In addition, people would be dealing with less risk. 

People who live along Juwana River flow have good capacity on disaster response. They have applied certain adaptation methods. Some of the method we describe below:

The duty of government not merely collecting data and proposing assistance to higher level which often expanding the number of survivors and number of lost for their own benefit. It is time for the government to understand local capacity of people, and then take that as local potential should be supported and be developed to reduce risk from flood. Conventional methods of disaster responses should be left behind. Survivors are active human resource, which should become subject of disaster response matters.
By Husaini, Central Java Field Coordinator
SHEEP Indonesia Foundation