Dian Indrawati

General

After the 1800s, the grassroots community’s environmental movement is blooming under a new ideology: conservation (Prize, 2022). As the public becomes more aware and concerned about water and its problems, conservation has become a new spirit for the grassroots movement, especially seeking to harvest the rainfall efficiently.

The euphoria of the conservation idea, which resulted in rainwater harvesting through grassroots activities, also occurred in Indonesia. As a result, a people’s movement aimed to keep water as long as possible became popular. One of the primary organizations which promoted this idea is Indonesia Rain Harvesting Movement (GMHI). Next, GMHI resulted in “Saleuwi” and additional rain harvesting movements in Indonesia.

Implemented area of movement

Rainwater harvesting has uncomplicated technology which can be applied in numerous countries, in both developed and developing ones (Velasco-Muñoz, Aznar-Sánchez, Batlles-delaFuente, & Fidelibus, 2019) (Sadia Rahman, Din, Biswas, & Shirazi, 2014) (Dwivedi, Patil, & Karankal, 2013) (Awawdeh, Al-Shraideh, Al-Qudah, & Jaradat, 2012). Along with the scarcity hazard due to intensifying climate, rainwater harvesting has become a favorable option because it can be executed even in communities with low technological and institutional capacity.

After more than a decade, GMHI has spread almost all over Indonesia, even scattered. Recently, this movement has grown to include more than 10 (ten) cities, namely: Sleman, Klaten, Sukoharjo, Purwokerto, Brebes and Semarang (Central Java); Malang and Jombang (East Java); Cimahi (West Java); Padang (West Sumatera); Buton (South East Sulawesi); Ternate (North Maluku); and Manokwari (West Papua).

Promoters and beneficiaries

Dr-Ing. Ir. Agus Maryono, a lecturer from Gadjah Mada University (UGM), became the man behind the Rain Harvesting Movement for Indonesia (GMHI). Even though sporadic, this activity was successfully implemented and developed in more than 25 communities due to rain harvesting technology and allied fields.

GMHI is very beneficial for both users and their environment and downstream area. This community successfully provided clean water for households and reduced the runoff.

People used clean water for drinking water, garden watering, toilet flushing, laundry usage, replenishing domestic pools or spas, car washing, supplying the hot water system, thermal buffers to insulate houses, ventilation for building, and protecting homes from bushfires (Tanks, 2022). In addition, reducing runoff from upstream will defer the amount of water and directly reduce peak discharge downstream.

Climate change engagement

Based on an interview with Dr. Agus Maryono, the founder of GMHI, the project was born because he was concerned about the drainage systems in Indonesia. At that time, Indonesia’s drainage approach mostly drained the water from inundating locations as soon as possible. This concept addressed two significant problems.

First, the downstream area collected large sums of water from the upstream. Therefore, it leads to expensive infrastructures and maintenance, especially for urban areas such as Jakarta, Semarang, Surabaya, and Palembang, because a large amount of water downstream needs high-cost and complex technologies for management. Unfortunately, the Government of the Republic of Indonesia, especially the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, has a limited budget due to drainage system development.

Second, runoff water did not have enough time to infiltrate upstream during the rainy season. This action causes upstream areas to suffer from water scarcity during the dry season.

Furthermore, as Indonesian development increases, multiple factors have decreased water quality both on the surface and sub-surface. People tend to consume clean water provided by the government or private companies instead of using water directly from its sources.

Due to those problems, Dr-Ing. Ir. Agus Maryono introduced a new system called rainwater harvesting. The system has been applied in developed countries, such as the US, Canada, Australia, and Germany, and successfully managed the rainfall and runoff in the river basin.

Along with climate change, when rainfall intensifies, runoff becomes a new monster because of the large amounts of water in the system. This monster haunted every rainfall occurrence and is not explicitly associated with the rainy season. Another problem due to climate change phenomena is that the dry season sometimes becomes more prolonged than usual. Taken together, GMHI provided an excellent wave to manage rainwater carefully.

Therefore, this movement not only deals with drainage systems in normal conditions but is also very engaged with climate change phenomena.

What are the main objectives?

The main objectives of GMHI are reducing the runoff from the minor scale: household and other roof building; and providing clean water for households, as previously mentioned.

What are the main values?

The central values of GMHI are scaling up people’s awareness regarding water treatment and management, especially rainfall, and tackling climate change through simple but reliable actions.

What is the timeline?

GMHI started conceptually in 2005 but first was developed in 2010 at Gadjah Mada University (UGM), Indonesia, especially at Engineering System Building (MST) building at Gadjah Mada University. In 2014, Dr. Agus and his colleagues in the water harvesting community created a WhatsApp group, and by 2018 the first congress of GMHI was held. Lastly, the 4th congress had carried out on 5-6 March 2022.

Source : courtesy Dr-Ing. Agus Maryono, 2022

Figure 1 The #4 congress of GMHI

In 2022, GMHI has more than 25 communities scattered across Indonesia, i.e: Komunitas Sedekah Air Hujan Sleman, Komunitas Banyu Bening Sleman, Komunitas Kandang Hujan Klaten, Komunitas Tahta Air Langit Jakarta, Komunitas Air Hujan Jombang, Komunitas Air Hujan Buton, Komunitas Air Hujan Padang, Komunitas Air Makmur Sukoharjo, Komunitas Air Hujan Banjarmasin, Komunitas Banyu Bening Puspo Sukoharjo, etc. This organization has been formed and will be inaugurated soon in Purwokerto, Ternate, Manokwari, Malang, Brebes, and Semarang.

Are there already visible effects?

The GMHI successfully offers great benefits for Indonesia, which can be divided into short, medium, and long terms. GMHI successfully provides fresh water for applicant households and their neighborhood in the short term. For the medium one, they promote their success stories to their relatives, colleagues, and the media. And for a long time, GMHI has hoped to be able to escalate awareness among people in Indonesia about water resources, especially rainwater.

Who are the actors involved? What is their background?

One of the exciting parts of GMHI is that everybody who is involved becomes an actor. This scheme gives government officers, lecturers, and private company employees equal positions. So educational background isn’t a severe problem, as long as they are committed to the movement and can spend some personal time on organizational campaigns.

So far, 34 (thirty-four) water resources agencies (BWS/BBWS) from the Ministry of Public Works and Housing have participated in and applied the rainwater harvesting system. In addition, the Watershed Agency from the Ministry of Forestry (BPDAS) has distributed more than 100 tanks for people who live in the upstream areas.

In the educational sector, Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani (UNJANI), Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), and Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) have become pioneers at each location and consistently spread the values of rainwater harvesting through their community service agendas.

Aside from them, more than 25 communities are involved, as previously mentioned. They come from various backgrounds, such as farmers, entrepreneurs, teachers, private employees, doctors, engineers, etc.

Limitation of the movement

Even before becoming a mainstream movement, the grassroots movements usually deal with several problems, such as local-specific yet widely-applicable; appropriate to yet transforming situations; project-based solutions yet seeking structural change; grassroots ingenuity; empowering inclusion; structural critique; and spaces for reflexive pluralities. (Smith, Fressoli, & Thomas, 2012).

Yet, GMHI also struggled with those kinds of problems. First, the technology of rainwater harvesting became very specific and must vary because of the environmental conditions of each area. Each location has its technology, which sometimes is not applicable in other places. For example, in Papua, the rainwater harvesting system only has a tank without any treatment activities. So, they have poor minerals compared with the system in Java.

Second, the implications and perspectives of the movement are also linear with the background and situation of the user. Some movements think they have different versions of GMHI, though they are also harvesting the rainfall. We believe many other movements have similar ideas to GMHI but refused to join and act personally.

Third, as with other grassroots movements in Indonesia, GMHI is generally sensitive to budgeting. People tend to refuse to spend money on developing rainwater harvesting systems in their communities. Only a few people are willing to invest money to build their rainwater harvesting. Based on a discussion with Dr. Agus regarding this issue, nowadays, we are waiting for a critical mass due to this program so that it will spread throughout Indonesia. In developed countries, there is an application for tax amnesty for the house or building which uses this system. That policy has been a critical point for a developing country like Indonesia.

Are any shortcomings or critical points visible?

One limitation regarding grassroots movements is that we tend to ignore any newest innovation which can improve the technology. It also happened in the GMHI movement. So, most of the rainwater harvesting technology in Indonesia today was similar to the systems in place twenty years ago. Significant research needs to be conducted about this technology as happened in other countries, such as the US, India, China, South Africa, and the Netherlands (Velasco-Muñoz, Aznar-Sánchez, Batlles-delaFuente, & Fidelibus, 2019).

What other problematic issues can arise from its implementation?

Both Mr. Agus and I experienced no other problems with rainwater harvesting implementation.

How would it be potentially replicable in other settings?

Indonesia has more than 17,000 islands, most of which are small islands with scarce water from rivers and groundwater but has an annual rainfall of about 3000-4000 mm per year. Therefore, Indonesia needs a system that can provide clean water with a minimum budget, mainly from rainwater. In addition, with our success stories from different environments, this system has the ultimate potential to be replicated and installed in other locations in Indonesia and around the globe.

However, the engineer should adjust the technology based on the natural characteristics and conditions of the specific location.

Conduciveness GMHI to broader changes in Indonesia

Nowadays, the GMHI becomes a machine to develop and combine similar actions due to rainwater harvesting as a people’s movement in Indonesia. Therefore, the project has an open-boundary system without formal bureaucracy, which is partially beneficial instead of limited.  

For example, my colleagues and I in Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani developed “Saleuwi” in the Cimahi area. This movement is part of an extension of GMHI like other similar communities, as mentioned previously.

The first time I had an intense discussion with GMHI’s initiator, Dr-Ing. Ir. Agus Maryono, was in about 2011 when I was a research assistant in Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Indonesia. At that time, Dr. Agus explained that rainwater harvesting technologies were already broadly applied in Germany, Australia, the US, and other developed countries and how this low-tech system successfully reduced runoff.

He also mentioned that he had successfully developed three rainwater harvesting systems at Gadjah Mada University (UGM), Indonesia. I remember that I was amazed at how the simple technology could provide fresh water and reduce runoff simultaneously.

At that point, I realized we needed to improve this technology to capture more rainfall and reduce runoff. On the one hand, rainwater harvesting needs a tank to keep rainwater, and it will require a larger tank for capturing heavy precipitation. But, on the other hand, the capacity of the tank is limited by area. Therefore, we need “something” to capture rainfall directly as well as to minimize the amount of runoff. I remember that I asked Dr. Agus about those issues, and he suggested using the bio pore, a hole or small tunnel formed underground resulting from the activities of organisms such as worms, termites, plant roots, etc. However, I think bio pores will only be effective for sand or granule soil. It will not work on clay or alluvium.

At that moment, I considered infiltration as well. I thought that before the water becomes runoff, we could capture it using a combination of rainwater harvesting and an infiltration well. And finally, we called it “Saleuwi”.

Saleuwi combines Sundanese collocation of “sa” and “leuwi”. “Sa” means one, and “leuwi” means water. So, saleuwi means capturing water with rainwater harvesting and its allies. Saleuwi not only captures rainfall for daily households but also recharges groundwater and reduces runoff. This technology resulted in many benefits for the users who implemented it and their neighbors with the same groundwater system.

In 2018, on behalf of the Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani community service program, “Saleuwi” was successfully applied in a buffer area. The success story of “Saleulwi” is available on the youtube channel, especially https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX97nMZ1vSo&t=7s.

Figure 2 Saleuwi system

References

Awawdeh, M., Al-Shraideh, S., Al-Qudah, K., & Jaradat, R. (2012). Rainwater harvesting assessment for a small size urban area in Jordan. International Journal of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering.

Dwivedi, D. A., Patil, V. B., & Karankal, A. B. (2013). Rooftop Rain Water Harvesting for Groundwater Recharge in an Educational Complex. Global Journal of Researches in Engineering Civil and Structural Engineering.

Prize, T. G. (2022). How Grassroots Environmental Activism Has Changed the Course of History. Retrieved from https://www.goldmanprize.org: https://www.goldmanprize.org/blog/grassroots-environmental-activism/

Sadia Rahman, 1. ,., Din, N. B., Biswas, S. K., & Shirazi, S. M. (2014). Sustainability of Rainwater Harvesting System in terms of Water Quality. ScientificWorldJournal.

Smith, A., Fressoli, M., & Thomas, H. (2012). Grassroots innovation movements: challenges and contributions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 1-11.

Tanks, S. W. (2022). Rainwater Harvesting Australia. Retrieved from https://www.selectwatertanks.com.au: https://www.selectwatertanks.com.au/rainwater-harvesting-australia/

Velasco-Muñoz, J. F., Aznar-Sánchez, J. A., Batlles-delaFuente, A., & Fidelibus, M. D. (2019). Rainwater Harvesting for Agricultural Irrigation: An Analysis of Global Research. Water, 1-18.