Indonesia

Understanding Indonesia’s Risks

Exposed to multiple hazards, Indonesia is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world. In the last five years, the country experienced 6,421 disaster-related events, affecting 10.5 million people. Understanding the spatial impacts and the ability to develop realist disaster scenarios can help risk managers and urban planners in their planning, preparation and response to disasters. However, limited risk data, low capacity in producing and using geospatial data, as well as the lack of coordination and sharing of risk information among stakeholders, the public, academia and civil sectors inhibit the ability to better prepare for emergency events and guide development to safer areas.

Collecting Data

The Indonesian mapping project began in 2011, the main idea was to use OpenStreetMap to collect previously unavailable data about buildings and their structure in both urban and agricultural environments and to use appropriate models to calculate likely damage in case of a physical disaster.

This data was essential in developing InaSAFE as a practical tool for governments to develop actionable contingency plans and fills the need for risk assessments identified by the World Bank. The approach slightly differs between rural and urban contexts although results were similar and both derived from paper maps edited by local people, satellite imagery, and GPS tracks. 16 workshops were held in the first two phases, training 124 participants in rural areas and at 5 urban universities. In total, 163,912 buildings were mapped during the pilot with 29,230 of them in urban areas. The collected information was analyzed using InaSAFE during the 2012 Jakarta flood contingency planning. This information can now be openly accessed and used for future emergency and planning exercises. Across the entire country, nearly half a million buildings have been mapped in the OpenStreetMap platform and can be used for InaSAFE analyses.

The project has also mapped geographic information for flood planning in Jakarta, asking 267 village heads to locate critical infrastructure and partner with university students to encode results. The detailed data collected was useful in both the 2013 and 2014 floods.

Using Data

The InaSAFE initiative started to support local disaster management agencies in emergency planning. Successfully tested during the 2012 flood season in Jakarta, the tool was rapidly rolled out nationally by the Indonesian National Disaster Agency, found at http://inasafe.org/en/.

A beta version, presented at the Understanding Risk Conference in July 2012, was downloaded over 1,000 times, underscoring the fact that InaSAFE was well-received by its many users. It is now being used in diverse environments – ranging from flood scenarios in the complex megacity of Jakarta to understanding potential earthquake and tsunami impacts in the rural community of Manokwari in West Papua.
With the help of Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOTOSM), participatory mapping tools were used to collect high-resolution data on critical infrastructure in Jakarta.

Developing and using InaSAFE strengthens the technical capacity and skills of users. Thus far, training has taken place in 5 provinces with over 130 participants from local disaster management agencies, universities and civil society.

InaSAFE has been developed in partnership with BNPB, the Australia Government, GFDRR Labs and the World Bank East Asia and Pacific DRM team. InaSAFE also supports the World Bank’s Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI). Jakarta Disaster Management Agency has been the primary CfR partner in Indonesia, leading the local competition.

Indonesia thumbnail image by Thomas Depenbusch licensed under CC BY 2.0