Study on integrating disaster risk reduction in Indonesian municipal spatial planning

Abstract

Indonesia has experienced many major natural disasters. As result, the Spatial Planning Law number 26/2007 and the Disaster Management Law number 24/2007 were enacted. Spatial Planning Law number 26/2007 requires local governments to revise their municipal spatial plans. This paper aims to investigate the obstacles to revising the municipal spatial plans in response to disaster risk reduction and analyze the application of disaster risk reduction by municipalities in relation to the municipal spatial plan. For these purposes, questionnaires were distributed to 106 municipalities (52 responses were obtained) and document analysis was conducted on eight revised municipal spatial plans. The questionnaires, interviews, and document analysis revealed two obstacles to revising the municipal spatial plan (stakeholders with differing interests and a lack of spatial data) and that the eight plans had varying levels of application in disaster risk reduction as a result of the differences in support from government and non-government agencies.