Lombok floods: living with and managing floods

This project aims to train local youth to interview various stakeholders involved in flood disasters in East Lombok to understand flood response behavior and relief efforts, Map flood-affected villages and degraded forested land and Develop communication channels and disaster evacuation routes.

Flash floods already occur frequently in East Lombok, most recently on 11 February 2017 affecting several villages. There are worries that social forestry will degrade more forested lands and increase flood disaster risk in already poverty-stricken areas. This project will train local Indonesian youths to interview various stakeholders involved in flood disasters in East Lombok (e.g. flood-affected villagers, bureaucrats, farmers etc.) to understand flood response behavior and relief efforts. They will map flood-affected villages and degraded forested land using GPS and drones and produce flood hazard risk maps that will be used to develop communication channels and disaster evacuation routes. These maps will also identify sensitive areas that need protection and degraded areas that require rehabilitation for flood mitigation and sustainable water resource management. Information collected through this exercise will be crucial to all 3 themes of the competition. The applicant is a Lombok-based social enterprise (Samanta Foundation) working with the University of Mataram in Lombok and James Cook University, Australia.