Making flood control child's play in Jakarta

Grace Susetyo in the Jakarta Globe: Floods, garbage and infectious diseases are three issues that perpetually plague Jakarta. And no matter what solutions the government comes up with, nothing seems to work for long. So what if a simple solution that even children could be a part of were actually available to tackle all three of these issues at once? There just might be: biopores.

Biopores, or biopori in Indonesian, are a means of increasing groundwater retention, composting organic waste and preventing the spread of infectious diseases simply by creating aerated holes. Bhuvana Nusantara, a nonprofit organization concerned with environmental conservation and climate change, has teamed up with Yayasan Kebun Raya Indonesia, a foundation dedicated to botanical gardens, to create an educational program called Sahabat Biopori in 30 Central Jakarta elementary schools since April 2009.

...Biopores are basically trails in the ground produced by the movement of organisms such as worms and insects. These vein-like trails become air passages that are capable of retaining water upon exposure to rain. To encourage the growth of biopores, simply dig a hole that is about 10 centimeters in diameter and 80 to 100 centimeters in depth. The drilling tool used is a simple metal rod with handles on one end and a hollow, curved diamond-shaped blade on the other.

...The hole is then filled with organic matter such as leaves, grass clippings and food scraps. These materials attract hungry underground crawlers, and the crawlers’ trails add extra space in the ground to absorb water....

A pre-1949 image of an anti-malaria campaign in Jakarta, searching for mosquito larvae. From the incomparable Tropenmuseum Collection, available at Wikimedia Commons