High rainfall in 2022 in Luwu Utara Regency, South Sulawesi raised fears of a repeat of the flash floods that occurred in 2020.
Mitigation of potential disasters in the regency is focusing on the Rongkong Catchment, which embraces the Masamba and Radda rivers, both of which experienced the greatest impact in past floods.
The Government of Luwu Utara Regency has brought together several of its functional units to address the issue: Rongkong Forest Management Unit, Public Works Agency, Environment Agency, Regional Disaster Management Agency, Meteorology Climatology and Geophysics Agency, Agriculture Agency and other working groups.
The Regency’s efforts are supported by the Sustainable Farming in Tropical Asian Landscapes (SFITAL) action-research programme led by World Agroforestry (ICRAF) Indonesia in collaboration with Rainforest Alliance UTZ and Mars, Incorporated.
A major challenge for the mitigation effort has been the difficultly in evaluating the watershed’s hydrological functions because rainfall and daily waterflow data are not available. This makes determining rain patterns and water discharge in the area almost impossible, which has a negative impact on the effectiveness of any planning to mitigate disasters.
While waiting for the availability of such data from Government agencies, SFITAL’s researchers came up with a solution: engaging local communities living nearby rivers along with Government staff to carry out participatory rainfall and daily river flow measurements.
In preparation, a workshop on the subject was conducted for Government staff and community members, which included a 5-day field trip along the Masamba and Radda rivers to determine observation and measurement points.
The first point visited was a bridge located at Bone in Masamba Sub-district. Here, workshop participants were trained in measuring the length and wide of a bridge, including making simple tools to determine the river’s profile at the measurement point; take water samples for analysing turbidity; and measure the velocity of the river’s surface flow using wooden floats.
During the workshop, follow-up actions were discussed with the Regional Research and Development Agency of Luwu Utara and representatives from other Government offices.
The Government of Luwu Utara promised to make all the necessary preparations needed to realize the participatory measurement. A proposal for further training and activities to strengthen the capacity of the Government of Luwu Utara in mitigating disasters was also discussed along with various other ideas for the implementation of participatory monitoring activities for a minimum period of 1.5 years. All workshop participants expected that the measurements could begin almost immediately.