Jakarta's regional disaster management agency, BPBD DKI Jakarta, commenced operation this month offering a smartphone app for disaster information-sharing for the city’s 10 million residents.
Fujitsu and Fujitsu Indonesia built the system under contract from the Indonesia office of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA Indonesia).
Residents will use the smartphone app to send pictures and comments, and based on their smartphone GPS locations, the system plots and aggregates rainfall amounts and river levels on a single map.
The information can also be viewed using the smartphone app. The system is linked to BPBD DKI Jakarta's existing Disaster Information Management System. In the event of a disaster, alerts issued by the agency are sent in real time to all smartphones that have the app installed.
With extensive flooding in 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2013 that affected a great number of residents and the regional economy, Indonesia's Special Capital Region of Jakarta has sought to improve its disaster-response capability.
In December 2013 it rolled out a Disaster Information Management System (DIMS) created by Fujitsu. But the only means that citizens can receive disaster information were radio, television, and the BPBD DKI Jakarta website.
BPBD DKI Jakarta was also hard-pressed to secure funding to build a sophisticated network of monitoring equipment, such as water-level sensors, and so was constrained in its ability to collect information.
JICA Indonesia stepped in to help deploy the system, which uses smartphones, which are widely used in the country.