Pictures: Jakarta Faces Flooding, Rising Seas, and Failing Defenses

High-Water Line

Photograph by Sean Gallagher

A man points to the high-water mark left on a wall in Jakarta, Indonesia, during an April flood.

City governor Joko Widodo told The Guardian in February that sprawling urban development has made flood control more difficult. (National Geographic reached out to Jakarta City Hall for comment on the city's flood mitigation strategy, but has not heard back.)

In his previous job as mayor of Surakarta, Indonesia, Widodo won international praise from the World Mayor Project for establishing a greenbelt of vegetation around that city. That buffer is thought to have protected Surakarta from harmful flooding.

About Jakarta, Widodo told The Guardian, "The wetlands, woods, and other green spaces north of the city have been taken over by housing complexes and malls. You can't just demolish everything."

Experts have pointed out that in addition to protecting natural ecological defenses like mangroves and wetlands, Jakarta needs to repair and expand a series of dams and channels built for flood control by Dutch colonialists.

Published July 23, 2013

Destroyed Home

Photograph by Sean Gallagher

A boy looks out onto a ruined home in a central Jakarta slum. The structure was destroyed in January, when floods killed more than 20 people and displaced some 20,000.

Published July 23, 2013

Clogged Canals

Photograph by Sean Gallagher

A small passenger boat crosses a canal near Jakarta's urban core. Such canals were built by Dutch colonialists to channel water away from the city during flooding, but they've fallen into disrepair and become clogged with refuse and human waste.

Published July 23, 2013

Choked With Trash

Photograph by Sean Gallagher

A man looks over a trash-choked river that winds through a central Jakarta slum. People routinely use the city's waterways as a dumping ground, said Gallagher. When rising waters come each January from seasonal rains, the rivers and canals often pick up additional refuse or concentrate it in certain areas, where it can get so thick that it crowds out the water.

Published July 23, 2013

Daily Hardships

Photograph by Sean Gallagher

A woman washes dishes on the edge of a polluted reservoir in northern Jakarta. More than five million people, or about half the city's population, live in slums here—as do more than one in four people across Indonesia.

Published July 23, 2013

Polluted Water

Photograph by Sean Gallagher

A woman washes herself in the Ciliwung River, which has been described as one of the most polluted rivers in the world. The waterway often floods, breaking its banks and sending polluted water into nearby communities.

Published July 23, 2013

Unsafe Food

Photograph by Sean Gallagher

A fisherman waves flies off his catch, which he harvested from flooded mangroves in northwest Jakarta. The region's remaining mangroves are under increasing threat from development. According to Gallagher, much of the city's seafood has been tainted by water pollution.

Published July 23, 2013

Open Toilets

Photograph by Sean Gallagher

A cat walks by an open toilet in Jakarta, where waste is often dumped directly into rivers and canals, without any processing. Not only can this spread disease and choke aquatic life, said Gallager, it also gives much of the city a distinct odor.

Published July 23, 2013

Unclogging Channels

Photograph by Sean Gallagher

A government worker removes trash from a clogged drainage channel in central Jakarta in April 2013.

Published July 23, 2013

Abandoned Buildings

Photograph by Sean Gallagher

Children play in the flooded ruins of a building that was abandoned after waters swept through the northern port area of Jakarta in January. With sea levels rising, parts of this low-lying city are flooding more frequently—sometimes even during the dry season, which runs from July through October.

Published July 23, 2013

Perilous Coast

Photograph by Sean Gallagher

Waves flow past a tree on the northern coast of Jakarta.

According to the Climate Reality Project, "Without flood protection measures, sea level rise could expose up to 6 million Indonesians to annual coastal flooding." The group predicts that the worst flooding may occur on the island of Java, where Jakarta is located.

City governor Widodo has called mitigation efforts "very complicated."

Published July 23, 2013