President Prabowo Orders BMKG to Strengthen Preparedness for Dry Season and El Niño

President Prabowo Subianto, on Tuesday (07/28), chaired a limited cabinet meeting on mitigating the potential impacts of drought associated with the El Niño phenomenon, including efforts to ensure water availability and prevent forest and land fires.

In his statement after the meeting, the Head of the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) Teuku Faisal Fathani stated that his agency would strengthen its support in responding to this year’s dry season, which is expected to coincide with El Niño. According to him, the efforts will focus on maintaining water supplies in reservoirs and carrying out weather modification operations.

“There are two main priorities, namely by ensuring water availability by replenishing reservoirs through weather modification and other measures. Also, by preventing forest and land fires using weather modification to moisten areas highly vulnerable to burning. The meeting placed a strong emphasis on weather modification efforts,” he explained.

The Head further stated that weather modification operations will primarily target six provinces including Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, and South Kalimantan. These operations will be conducted regularly to keep peatlands sufficiently moist and reduce the risk of fires.

“Similar operations will also be conducted in the Riau Islands and Aceh provinces, as well as in other locations on a situational basis, depending on prevailing conditions,” he added.

He also explained that the operations will also be used to help replenish water levels in reservoirs across the country. The initiative will involve close cooperation between ministries, government agencies, and private-sector partners to ensure adequate water supplies for hydropower plants, irrigation, and clean water needs.

“To mitigate drought, BMKG is carrying out weather modification in collaboration with the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), Ministry of Forestry, and private-sector partners to replenish reservoirs. Indonesia has around 240 reservoirs. While it is not possible to replenish all of them, we are prioritizing those that can support hydropower plants, irrigation, and clean water supplies,” he said.

The Head also said that these two initiatives form part of the Government’s strategy to prioritize preventive measures against drought and forest and land fires. He noted that this represents an improvement over previous approaches, which focused primarily on responding after fires had already broken out.

“We don’t wait for hotspots to emerge and then respond with water bombing and firefighting efforts. When groundwater levels begin to decline, weather modification can bring down millions of cubic meters of rainwater, saturating the affected areas. As a result, forest and land fires are now relatively more manageable than they were before 2015,” he concluded. (BPMI of Presidential Secretariat) (FI/LW)