INDONESIA’S President Joko Widodo has announced that his country has decided to move its capital from Jakarta to a new site in East Kalimantan province on the island of Borneo. Jakarta, he said, has so many problems, including constantly gridlocked traffic, but its biggest problem is that it is sinking.
The city’s population of about 10 million has extracted so much underground water, causing the land to sink about 6.7 inches a year. At the same time the sea level is rising as icebergs melt in the polar regions. In the last 30 years, Jakarta has sunk around ten feet from a combination of land subsidence and a rise in ocean levels due to climate change.
President Widodo said Indonesia will create a new capital city in Borneo, hundreds of miles northeast of Jakarta. Kalimantan is known for its beaches and dense rainforest. It is said to be relatively free from earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Construction of the new capital is expected to cost $33 billion and take about 10 years, but the government could start transferring as early as 2024.
Jakarta is No. 1 in a list of ten major cities in the world that are sinking. Second in the list is Manila, Philippines, followed by Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in Vietnam; New Orleans in Louisiana, United States; Bangkok, Thailand; Osaka, Japan; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Shanghai, China; Venice, Italy; and Alexandria, Egypt. These are only the “top ten” facing the greatest threat from rising sea levels. Worldwide, there are said to be about 4,000 large coastal cities vulnerable to rising sea levels.
The problem in Manila was first noted in the 1960s when industrialization led to the construction of many infrastructure projects in many rapidly growing cities in the country. Today, after a heavy rainfall, many areas in Metro Manila get flooded, although streets are usually back to normal after one day because of flood control projects.
The government stopped the widespread pumping up of groundwater decades ago, but a recent study by the World Bank said the ground is still sinking in Metro Manila. The greater threat today is from rising sea levels due to climate change melting the polar icebergs.
Manila’s problem is not as serious as that of Jakarta. We don’t expect any plan to move the nation’s capital elsewhere. But because of other problems such as the traffic, some government offices are moving outside of Metro Manila. The Department of Transportation is already at Clark City in Pampanga.
Meanwhile, we continue to seek solutions to problems that make living and working in Metro Manila difficult. We hope to solve them soon and we hope Manila will not sink as much as Jakarta so that we will continue to have it as our historic capital.
