Fig. 1 Workshop in Jakarta
Source: RDI Documentation
Cities face the challenge of mitigating flood risk with imperfect data amidst climate change. Resilience Development Initiative together with King’s College London launching project “Empowering resilience in a sinking city: a Decision Support System (DSS) for participatory knowledge exchange, urban simulation, and modelling”.
The principal aim of the project is to explore the use of human-informed decision support system tools and visual art in empowering and increasing the resilience of local communities to flood risk in Penjaringan, a sub-district (kelurahan) of more than 300,000 in North Jakarta. Situated on the Javanese coast. Penjaringan is a highly diverse sub-district in terms of ethnic and religious identity and language that is home to some of the city’s most vulnerable and marginalised residents.
Fig. 2 Average Flood Height & Displacement Due The Flood
Source: Peta Bencana
This project employs a participatory research design to foster collaboration among data and social scientists, communities, and artists. Its goal is to develop a public art exhibition and a decision support system (DSS) to address flood risk in Penjaringan, a vulnerable area in North Jakarta. By integrating community input, data science, and artistic engagement, the project aims to improve disaster prediction, enhance community resilience, and amplify marginalized voices. The innovative approach creates feedback loops between science, community knowledge, and art, offering a model for interdisciplinary solutions to environmental challenges.
Fig. 3 Workshop in Jakarta
Source: RDI Documentation
The project kicked off on 8 August by holding a workshop. The workshop aims to's project soft lunch and validate data and method due to the government and organization project related in Penjaringan Jakarta Uara. Workshop attended by several government and organisation, such as Open Street Map, Peta Bencana, Jakarta Smart City, Jakarta Satu, BPBD DKI Jakarta, Bappeda DKI Jakarta, and PUPR Directorat Sungai dan Pantai.
The workshop started with Principal Investigator Dr. Zahratu Shabrina's explanation about the background study and research objective. This research project will be divided into 3 working packages:
- Working Package 1: Capacity Building, Community Engagement, and Co-Production for Urban Policies, led by Dr Ramanditya Wimbardana,
- Working Package 2: Community-Informed Decision Support System led by Dr. Zahratu Shabrina,
- Working Package 3: Public Awareness through Public Art Exhibition led by Dr. Emma Colven.
Integrating Interrelated Disciplines
To achieve it’s objectives, the project will use interrelated disciplines:
- Social Science: Identify needs and priorities collaboration
- Data Science: Community-informed DSS Platform
- Art Humanities: Collaborate with local artist to create a public art
Fig. 4 Research Objective
Source: KCL & RDI Team
While this project is focused on Penjaringan, the findings and results will be widely applicable to other coas and/or sinking cities worldwide that are faced with growing flood risk.
The project will create space for interdisciplinary collaboration and dialogue between academics, artists, NGOs, think tanks, communities (including children, and people from various gender and economic backgrounds), and government, in alignment with the British Academy’s strategy of encouraging innovation and partnership between KCL and the Resilience Development Initiative (RDI) as an Indonesian representative to bolster the Academy’s core objective of ensuring sustained international engagement.
Government and Community Involvement
From the discussion held by Bappeda DKI Jakarta (Atika, Head of Bappeda, and Ajie, Head of Research and Innovation), Jakarta Smart City (Jianly Bagensa, Community Specialist), and the Government of North Jakarta (Wawan Rohman, Deputy of Economic Development), it was concluded that they will be able to assist in this project. Bappeda DKI and Jakarta Smart City will be able to share knowledge and data from previous studies conducted in North Jakarta.
Fig. 5 Workshop in Jakarta
Source: RDI Documentation
Similarly, the North Jakarta government supports this activity and is willing to actively participate in providing the necessary input and information. They will also oversee this research so that it can be valuable input for both the local government and the community directly.
Way forward
The RDI and KCL teams are currently managing data and conducting analysis for Objective 1: Identifying community needs, Objective 2: Developing the Decision Support System Platform, and preparing for the art exhibition under Objective 3.
Fig. 4 Government Engagement
Source: RDI Documentation
Going forward, RDI and King's College London will collaborate with Bappeda DKI Jakarta, Jakarta Smart City, and the North Jakarta Government to organize a hackathon and art exhibition in 2 different scales in Jakarta; Local Community in Penjaringan and During Hackathon with participants, which we plan to hold in August 2025.
