A methodology to assess environmental vulnerability in a coastal city: Application to Jakarta, Indonesia

Highlights

• A new methodology to assess environmental vulnerability for coastal cities was developed considering land use pattern and policy utilization.

• Using GIS data is turned out to be very useful to reflect local conditions.

• We suggest radial graphs as a policy supporting tool to visualize important sectors for overall environmental vulnerabilities.

Abstract

The assessment of environmental vulnerability is a sound basis for environmental management measures because it provides an objective standard for the priorities for implementation. Although several methods have been used by international agencies to assess and compare national environmental vulnerabilities, relatively few methodologies have been proposed to assess vulnerability on the local scale. In this study, we developed a methodology to assess the environmental vulnerability of a coastal city, with the goal of overcoming the limitations of a previous method that compared countries' vulnerabilities on a global scale. We applied this methodology to Jakarta, Indonesia, to identify its utility in providing a basis for the development of environmental policy measures. We assessed the relative environmental vulnerabilities of Jakarta's five districts, using a conceptual diagram composed of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. For environmental exposure, we considered inundation due to heavy rainstorm, flood from sea level rise, and environmental pollution. For sensitivity, sectors of human and natural systems were considered using a land cover map from GIS data. To examine adaptive capacity, we addressed environmental awareness, policy foundation, economic status, and infrastructure. The assessment results showed that the East and North districts are more vulnerable than other districts. We suggested environmental policy measures for each district using radial graphs that show the dominant indicators within the composite index. Our proposed methodology has a significant relevance in the sense that it extracts key indicators of environmental vulnerability by considering local conditions, and provides a useful tool to compare results within a vulnerability assessment and to inform appropriate environmental policy measures.

Introduction

Management of environmental vulnerability is prerequisite to global sustainable development. For this reason, many international agencies have conducted assessments that compare national environmental vulnerabilities on a global scale, and used the results of these assessments as standards for setting their institutional priorities. For example, the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have developed the Environmental Vulnerability Index (EVI), which compiles 50 different indicators regarding weather and climate, geology, geography, ecosystem resources, and human populations and composites them into a single index (Kaly et al., 2004). This kind of composite index is a relatively simple way to combine various aspects of vulnerabilities for consideration. The concept of environmental vulnerability typically incorporates both biophysical and socioeconomic factors (Kaly et al., 2004, Adger, 2006). Data on biophysical aspects mainly relate to risk of hazards, climate, geology, and geography, whereas socioeconomic aspects include the system's inherent resistance to damage and acquired adaptive capacity (Kaly et al., 2004, Adger, 2006).

Assessment of environmental vulnerabilities on a global scale is important because the results of such assessment provide criteria that can be used to distribute international funds, for example. In addition, vulnerability assessment on the local scale is also very useful because the results can serve as the basis for local environmental measures. However, the same methodologies used to assess vulnerability on the global scale cannot be directly applied to the local scale because they tend to mask heterogeneous impacts and risks imposed on the local scale by averaging them out (Adger et al., 2004; Vincent, 2007). Birkmann (2007) also pointed out that the key indicators of vulnerability could vary with spatial scale. For these reasons, we need a different methodology to assess local environmental vulnerability, but despite this need, local environmental vulnerabilities have been widely evaluated simply based on historical records of natural disasters or pollution. Hong and Hwang (2006) used damage costs from flooding as a proxy for comparing local vulnerabilities in 16 districts of South Korea, retrieving damage costs from the statistical data in national disaster records in the period 1970–2004. Firman et al. (2011) summarized potential climate change vulnerabilities in five districts of Jakarta, also by using recorded data from natural disasters, including floods; sea level rise; tornado activity; landslides; and water, air, and noise pollution. Although the results of these assessments could be utilized in identifying higher-priority districts, they could not have provided concrete information for setting local environmental policy measures.

In this sense, there is a need to develop a new methodology to assess local environmental vulnerability, including considerations beyond just risk of hazards or damage from disaster. To be useful in informing the development of environmental measures, such a new method should consider specific local conditions. In this study, we introduced a new framework for the assessment of environmental vulnerability on a local scale by integrating a geographical information system (GIS), local statistics, and a survey. The ultimate objective of this work is to find a new methodology to assess local vulnerabilities that includes consideration of site-specific characteristics. Another goal is to develop a new tool based on the Jakarta assessment to aid local policy makers in assessing local conditions and developing appropriate environmental measures based on the results.