Rising floodwaters: mapping impacts and perceptions of flooding in Indonesian Borneo

Jessie A Wells; Kerrie A Wilson; Nicola K Abram; Malcolm Nunn; David LA Gaveau; Rebecca K Runting; Nina Tarniati; Kerrie L Mengersen; Erik Meijaard

Journal article

Rising floodwaters: mapping impacts and perceptions of flooding in Indonesian Borneo

Jessie A Wells, Kerrie A Wilson, Nicola K Abram, Malcolm Nunn, David LA Gaveau, Rebecca K Runting, Nina Tarniati, Kerrie L Mengersen, Erik Meijaard

ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS | IOP PUBLISHING LTD | Published : 2016

DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/11/6/064016

Abstract

The roles of forest and wetland ecosystems in regulating flooding have drawn increasing attention in the contexts of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. However, data on floods are scarce in many of the countries where people are most exposed and vulnerable to their impacts. Here, our separate analyses of village interview surveys (364 villages) and news archives (16 sources) show that floods have major impacts on lives and livelihoods in Indonesian Borneo, and flooding risks are associated with features of the local climate and landscape, particularly land uses that have seen rapid expansions over the past 30 years. In contrast with government assessments, we find that fl..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Rebecca Runting Author Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Jessie Wells Author Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship

Awarded by ARC Centre of Excellence program

Funding Acknowledgements

We thank the many respondents who volunteered information in the interview surveys, and thank The Nature Conservancy for funding the surveys and providing access to this dataset. We are grateful to staff from CIFOR (The Center for International Forestry Research), the World Agroforestry Centre, and the River Basin Planning section of the Indonesian Government Ministry of Public Works, for discussing data sources and their current research on floods and forests. KAW and JW acknowledge funding from The University of Queensland and the Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship FT100100413 and ARC Centre of Excellence program CE110001014. KM also acknowledges support from the ARC. The Borneo Futures network acknowledges financial support from the United Nations Environment Program (DEPI Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific) and the Arcus Foundation.