Enhancing Flood Resilience and Urban Planning with EO data in Indonesia

Indonesia faces increasing pressure from multiple interacting hazards, particularly flooding, land subsidence, and rapid urban development, which together create major challenges for infrastructure planning and disaster resilience across several cities.

In response to these challenges, the GDA Disaster Resilience activity worked with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) to use Earth Observation (EO) data to identify the most fragile urban zones and support better planning decisions.

In Jakarta, EO-based flood extent maps from 2015–2022 were overlaid with subsidence monitoring data to show where infrastructure is affected by both flooding and land subsidence, effectively trapped between rising water and sinking ground. This has helped local authorities prioritise adaptation measures in the most vulnerable districts. In Cirebon, EO-derived impervious surface mapping was combined with flood impact analysis to show how urban expansion is worsening flood risk, supporting more informed city planning. In Palu, ongoing subsidence monitoring has highlighted continued ground movement in areas affected by the 2018 earthquake and tsunami, identifying where buildings and infrastructure remain at risk. In Semarang, flood depth, land subsidence, and building vulnerability data were combined into a Combined Risk Index, helping authorities identify the most exposed neighbourhoods and prioritise both emergency response and longer-term investment.

You can find out more about this Case Study on the GDA Impact Sphere: Combining flood exposure, land subsidence and building risk for better planning

Related Use Case

• Exposure of Assets and Vulnerability Mapping