Great Losses over 4 Years of Hydrometeorological Disasters: BNPB

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) gathered data from 2018-2022 calculating the humanitarian and financial losses caused by hydrometeorological disasters. The losses from damages to houses and resident facilities reach Rp31.5 trillion. 

“The BNPB met challenges in executing our tasks. One of which is the aspect of unpredictably changing weather,” said BNPB spokesperson Dodi Yuleova in a webinar on Wednesday, January 8.

BNPB analyzes potential hazard threats by utilizing cross-ministerial and agency data before providing direction to district and city-level BPBDs for local preparedness efforts and activating the Rapid Reaction Team (TRC), especially for areas that are prone to hydrometeorological disasters.

What was conveyed by BNPB in the webinar coincides with data from BMKG (Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency) which stated that extreme rainfall in Indonesia has tended to increase in the last 40 years. This trend has resulted in a high number of hydrometeorological disasters.

The results of a study using climate projection modeling data by BMKG also show that in the future there will still be an increase in rainfall in some areas, although this may not be evenly distributed. On the other hand, the duration of the number of dry days also increased by 20-30 percent compared to the period between 1986-2005.

Intan Suci Nurhati, a climatology and oceanography researcher at BRIN explained that increasingly intense climate change will result in less optimal absorption of carbon in the sea and forests. Deteriorating sea conditions affect the weather situation on land, resulting in frequent hydrometeorological disasters.

MARIA FRANSISCA LAHUR

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