Water paradox in Jakarta (Indonesia)

Indonesia is known as the largest archipelago in the world that is located in the equator line; particularly in a region characterized by a heavy rainfall with a generally high annual precipitation [1]. Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, is situated in the northern coast of Java Sea. Due to its geographical position, Jakarta benefits from a high precipitation, on average 2500 mm/year [2], but unevenly distributed timely and spatially. Moreover, Jakarta has 13 principal rivers across the city, but poor water quality. Besides, Jakarta's artesian basin is productive, but intruded by brackish water from Java Sea. Thus, physically, Jakarta has an abundance of water. However, Jakarta deals with a severe crisis of clean water indicating a paradox: plentiful water resources yet limited clean water. The Jakarta's inhabitants certainly need the water in their daily activities. This paradox eventually affects their water fulfillment, which attracts the attention of the actors, such as central government, provincial government, water service providers, environmental NGOs, etc.). Each actor probably responds differently, depending on his/her interests. This actors' behavior constructs current water provision in Jakarta. Based on the issues above, this paper intends to illustrate the state of the art of water paradox in Jakarta. Besides, this paper tries to analyze how the actors respond to this paradox. To reach these objectives, we mobilizes the approach "multilevel and multi governance" because after the fall of General Suharto's authoritarian government in 1998, Indonesia has entered to "democratic" and "good governance" era. It means that not only central government who involves in water but also other institutions including non-governmental ones. To collect the data, we mobilize primary sources from field works and secondary ones from government and non-government. There are several results of this research. Firstly, although human activities change the physical landscape of water provision in Jakarta, the nature still determines human. For example, due to the meander form of Jakarta's rivers, water debit is naturally low creating difficulty during clean water production. Secondly, through the analysis of multilevel multi governance, in general we found that there are contradictive actions between the actors: tensions and conflicts, and cooperation. For example, although there is a schema of "Public Private Partnership" between the Government of Indonesia and its partners: Palyja and Aetra, the multinational companies that received water concession production, the conflict happens between them.