Sustainable water provision in Tarakan City

Abstract

Clean water provision is the sixth goal of SDGs, in which all countries are struggling to achieve those goals. Indonesia is archipelagic where only 12.38% or around 2,342 islands are inhabited by a total of 17,504 islands. Clean water provision for all inhabited islands, particularly for small islands, have been a significant issue for Government of Indonesia. Availability of fresh water, ground and surface, in a small island is often critical since the island is surrounded by the sea. Hydrological process in providing annual regional fresh water is relatively stagnant. Tarakan City is an island city, located at north-east of the mainland of Kalimantan. Water provision planning is important to close the gap between the supply and demand. The latest local statistics data of population in Tarakan (2015) was 227,200 people [1] and therefore the estimated maximum demand of fresh water was 74,158,080 liters per day or 838.3 liters/second. The capacity of Local State Own Water Enterprise was only 400 liters/second, less than half of the demand. Strategies that can be taken, apart of the efforts to maximize efficient use to save water, are to minimize storm water run-offs, promote better land use planning, and strictly preserve watershed regions to have at least 30% green area.