Mr. Brinkman and the Polder Project Jakarta

Today, Saturday the 19th november, we met Mr. Brinkman from Deltares. Mr. Brinkman has been working for Deltares for a longer time, including large scale projects in Singapore and Thailand.

At the moment, he is working on a project that is of very Dutch nature: introducing the polder system to Jakarta to fight flooding in the City. The City has been experiencing severe flooding, and many people still have the big flooding of 2007 in mind. Mr. Brinkman gave a tour through the city, showing us the weak links of the channels that are supposed to discharge peak rainfall of the city.

When visiting a dyke, it became clear to us how urgent the improvements for the flood protection of the city currently are: The city has been experiencing major land subsidies in the recent years. The city has been growing a lot in the recent years, leading to increased demand in water. Due to over intensive extraction of groundwater, the soil under the city keeps on sinking, threating the future of the city and the population.

After a nice Chinese lunch and some Chinese entertainment by Tao and Sander, we visited some more sluices to get an idea of the current situation.

The day ended with an Indian dinner and a presentation of the Polder project Jakarta, that aims to stop the problems by constructing a huge catchment basin. This will be created by closing the bay of Jakarta.