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View all search resultsJava needs seawall, mangrove restoration to protect northern coast
Mangrove forest can reduce wave height by 13 to 66 percent in 100 meters while at the same time restoring fish habitat and coastal community economy.
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Unstoppable tide: Residents push their motorbikes on Friday through floodwaters that inundated Jl. Kaligawe Raya in Semarang, Central Java, a section of the Java Northern Coast (Pantura) Highway, located between Semarang and Surabaya, East Java. (Antara/Aprillio Akbar)
T
he Environmental Ministry is pushing for a hybrid coastal defense along the northern Java coast consisting of estuary protection, groundwater control, tight spatial planning and mangrove restoration.
Northern Java currently faces serious a threat of coastal abrasion, tidal floods and land subsidence. Although the construction of a giant seawall has value in protecting economic activities along the coast, the concrete structure is not the sole solution, Environmental Minister Jumhur Hidayat said on Tuesday.
“If groundwater is extracted excessively, spatial planning is also needed for coastal ecosystem damage to be controlled” he said.
He emphasized the importance of reactivating natural protections because mangroves form a natural barrier. Mangrove forests can reduce wave height by 13 percent to 66 percent in 100 meters while at the same time restoring fish habitats and the local economy.
Jumhur was speaking during at Sultan Agung Islamic University in Semarang on Tuesday in an event titled “Giant Sea Wall as a Strategic Solution to Mitigate Abrasion and Tidal Flood in Central Java’s Northern Coast”.
During the public lecture, Jumhur dissected the root causes of the coastal crisis.
He said that the environmental crisis had a huge impact directly affecting residential areas, industrial zones, port activities as well as agriculture and fisheries sectors which are the region’s backbones.
