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This is the first story in our two-part photojournalism series “Parched and Drenched” on the water crisis in Indonesia. Read the second story here.
In the summer of 2024, several villages in Yogyakarta, Central Java, Indonesia dealt with a months-long drought.
Climate change has changed the rainfall patterns in the region, shifting the regular patterns of the monsoon as well as the agriculture that depends on it. As a result, water sources that villagers can actually utilize have become rare, or in some cases, non-existent.
The national meteorological agency warned that due to the impacts of the El Niño Southern Oscillation this year, which blows the rain-bearing trade winds away from Indonesian islands, citizens should expect a prolonged, more intense drought this year.
In the coastal village of Tepus, resident Karno said he and other community members tried digging wells at several locations and depths without any success. This means he has to carry water for kilometers in large jerry cans just to keep his livestock and crops hydrated.
“Water is very scarce there. The water pipes connecting the village to the agricultural land are no longer flowing at all, and likewise, the water storage has been empty for the past few months,” he said.
Karno said that only one well in his village produced water, but the quantity was small and limited to a small number of households for cooking. “Because water is a basic need, like it or not, we have to work hard to get it,” he said.
Gunungkidul Regency, the region that Tepus belongs to, is used to yearly droughts. Most of the water sources in the region are underground rivers, which can be hard to reach for a constant supply of potable water. The existing natural lakes in the area have also been surrounded by concrete walls, which causes them to dry up every season.
But the four-month-long drought during the hot summer meant no rainfall that could replenish the lakes.
In Tepus, villagers have difficulties meeting daily water needs, especially for drinking, cooking, and personal hygiene. The growth of crops has been disrupted, which threatens local food production and causes anxiety about future food shortages.
Desi and scores of other residents of Selopamioro Village in Bantul Regency have been relying on the few water springs as well as government handouts for clean water this summer. “The drought in this village has been felt since April, and there has been no rain until now. The wells in this area have dried out, so residents can only get water from the springs,” she said.
The mother of two was carrying her child Tiffany while manually sucking the hose so that water could come out of the hose.
Around 50 families in the area depend on this spring. As a result, the water is distributed in separate quotas during the day and night. Desi and the other families belonging to the day quota can take water from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. local time, while about 30 other families have to wait until nightfall to refill their supply.
“If they use it all at once, the water clearly won’t be enough,” she said.
Every day, Desi walks 300 meters to get two buckets of water for her family’s daily needs. On days she is lucky, she can get five.
In the hamlets of Kalidadap and Selopamioro, there are dozens of hoses of up to one kilometer long that distribute clean water from the reservoirs to the residents’ homes. But because the water levels of the reservoir are so low, residents are forced to manually suck water from the hoses using their mouths.
But this is not a new thing. Sarjono, a resident of Kalidadap, said that he and his community members have been sucking water from hoses for about nine years, now that their private reservoirs have gone dry.
“The water is low. If it is not drawn, it will not come out,” the 73-year-old said. “This place is the last source of water that residents can take. Even with great difficulty, people can still use water. Even though they queue every day and have to draw water simultaneously because water is a basic need, people are willing to queue.”
While water is available for purchase (a 5,000-liter tank costs IDR 150,000 or almost $10), not all residents can afford it.
Although he is elderly and blind, Sarjono said he purchased two tanks of water to provide for his community’s daily needs as well as the crops growing on the plantations. But for a community that mostly consists of farmers, this purchased fresh water does not come cheap.
He hopes that the government will soon pay attention to the villages in his area and provide them with this very basic necessity.
Purwono, the head minister of the local party Badan Penanggulangan Bencana Daerah (BPBD) Gunungkidul, said through the regional disaster management agency of Yogyakarta province that five to eleven sub-districts in the region have been affected by the drought. Universitas Gadjah Mada, a local university, sent about 1 million liters of clean water through the local Disaster Response Unit.
“The peak of the dry season is estimated to be in August or September, and October enters the transition period. Currently, the water demand has increased,” he said. He explained that areas potentially experiencing drought are in the southern zone or the Karst Hills, so there are no surface water sources.
Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono X, governor of Yogyakarta, set a Drought Disaster Emergency Alert Status for the region for the month of August to respond to the drought. But the response was far from adequate, as the provisions of clean water to the residents were temporary.
Efficiency of water systems and rainwater harvesting practices need to be adopted nationally to deal with the recurring droughts, similar to the pipe installations that the Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto provided for agricultural irrigation in the Gunungkidul and Bantul Regencies in September 2023, among other clean water-related projects.
Subianto has made it a mission to collect water from a potential underground river in Gunungkidul Regency, which may help alleviate the drought that residents have been dealing with for about a decade.
November 19th UPDATE: The captions have been updated to correct grammatical errors.
November 20th UPDATE: A previous version of the headline incorrectly described Java as the largest island in the country. We apologize for the error.
