Kaltimtoday.co - The Nusantara Capital City Authority (IKN) visited Deltares, one of the world’s leading research institutions in water and environmental management, located in The Hague, Netherlands on Monday (09/10/2023). The visit aims to discuss collaboration plans to realize the sponge city concept in Nusantara’s Capital City.

During his visit, the Head of the IKN Authority, Bambang Susantono, explained that the sponge city is one of the fundamental principles of area development in IKN, combining the urban concepts of a forest city and a smart city.

The sponge city concept will be implemented in IKN to restore the natural water cycle disrupted by development. The application of this concept will provide benefits such as water harvesting for additional water availability, flood hazard reduction, and ecological preservation. The sponge city will be realized, among other things, through green and blue open spaces, urban facility designs with green rooftops, as well as the application of porous roads and sidewalks, bioswales, and bioretention systems to retain or absorb rainwater.

The sponge city implementation has been planned in Law No. 3 of 2022 concerning the State Capital. However, the IKN Authority, along with related stakeholders, will refine this sponge city concept, one way being by collaborating with Deltares. The collaboration with Deltares is a manifestation of the support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for IKN development.

“After the DPR visited several sponge cities in Australia recently, they saw that this concept is suitable for Indonesia. Although the sponge city concept has been included in the IKN blueprint from the beginning, we need to strengthen it further to ensure proper water management in Nusantara,” said Bambang.

Deltares’ Regional Manager for Asia and Oceania, Tjitte A. Nauta, responded positively to the sponge city adoption plans in IKN. “We are, of course, very pleased to assist and collaborate with the team in IKN. Our data is very open whenever needed,” he said.

On the same occasion, the Deputy for Environment and Natural Resources, Myrna A. Safitri, explained that the sponge city concept can be understood as water resilience. “The concept is the same as a sponge city, that is, a city capable of managing water well, can store, and flow when needed in a calculated manner,” she clarified.

Accompanying the Head of the IKN Authority were Deputy for Green and Digital Transformation of IKN, Mohammed Ali Berawi; Deputy for Environment and Natural Resources of IKN, Myrna Asnawati Safitri; Director of Environment and Disaster Management of IKN, Onesimus Patiung; and Special Staff for Public Safety, Brigadier General (Police) Edgar Diponegoro.