Indonesia banks on dams to tackle water crisis - but at what cost?

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Facing worsening water security concerns, Indonesia is building more water retention dams, which it says are needed to supply irrigation, reduce the risk of flooding and provide a source of low-carbon hydroelectric power.

But dam building - as with the Bener Dam - is causing its own new challenges, from upending the lives of local people to new losses of forests and agricultural land, according to residents and campaigners.

Deforestation, in particular, can interfere with rainfall patterns and affect the ability of land to hold water, said Ully Artha Siagian, a forest and climate change campaign manager at the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WALHI), a non-profit group.

The Bener dam "will actually add to the burden of the threat of a clean water crisis in the future," she said. "So, converting forest areas into dams does not answer the problem."

In response to concerns by campaigners, Dwi Purwantoro, an official at the Ministry of Public Works and Housing (PUPR), said by phone that dam building was important not only for boosting water security but also for better controlling floods.

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