Land subsidence as a sleeping disaster: Case studies from Indonesia

Various areas around the world are currently threatened by land subsidence. It has severe consequences for people and both the built and the natural environment in different areas, for example, urban, coastal, and peatland areas. It has destroyed buildings, infrastructures, and ecosystems, decreased the value of land, and damaged the source of income of the people affected by subsidence. Land subsidence must be combatted to avoid more serious consequences in the future. In disaster literature, three concepts—namely awareness, response, and adaptive capacity—are considered crucial factors when dealing with disasters. There has been a limited discussion about these aspects regarding land subsidence. Using case studies from Indonesia, this dissertation contributes to a deeper and broader understanding of the characteristics of land subsidence and the responses of affected people and various actors to subsidence. Three areas that represent urban, coastal, and peatland were studied. A combination of a qualitative and a quantitative approach and various data collecting techniques were utilized. The present research shows that, land subsidence is a complex problem that threatens different geographical settings. It slowly endangers affected areas and people through its slow and sometimes undetected movement. Land subsidence is severe and repeated damage. For affected households, it affects them in various ways, ranging from physical damage to their land and property, to environmental and socioeconomic problems. Their assets are sinking continuously, and increasingly so. The land subsidence issue is becoming more complicated since it is interrelated with other problems that can increase its impacts. To deal with land subsidence, some affected households had initiated some measures using their own capacities. However, most had not taken any measures, because they were not aware of the problem, did not have enough money to adapt to land subsidence, or did not know how to respond properly. Their ability to respond to the problem has also decreased, as land subsidence has undermined their source of income. The government at various levels, environmental and developmental NGOs, and local communities have also tackled the problems using their resources. The actors’ interventions have been diverse, ranging from adaptation to existing problems, to mitigation measures to minimize the drivers to prevent future problems. Despite the various responses, there are still some considerable challenges to overcome in order to solve the problem of land subsidence. Some of the challenges are: 1) The solutions offered have been fragmented, and cannot solve such a huge problem; 2) actors pay more attention to fixing the short-term issues than fighting the drivers; 3) the scale of the solutions offered is often too small to tackle such a huge problem; and 4) the central government and local governments take different approaches, especially when designing and prioritizing solutions. Hence, it is important to adopt a comprehensive approach to the issue, starting by raising the awareness of it, then enhancing the adaptive capacity of those people and actors to respond to the issue, using effective measures based on time-scale considerations and acting based on coherent processes and multilevel cooperation among actors.