Benthic and fish community composition as well as water quality along the Thousand Islands north of the megacity Jakarta, Indonesia

Worldwide, coral reefs are challenged by multiple stressors due to growing urbanization, industrialization and coastal development. Coral reefs along the Thousand Islands off Jakarta, one of the largest megacities worldwide, have degraded dramatically over recent decades. The shift and decline in coral cover and composition has been extensively studied with a focus on large-scale gradients (i.e. regional drivers), however special focus on local drivers in shaping spatial community composition is still lacking. Here, the spatial impact of anthropogenic stressors on local and regional scales on coral reefs north of Jakarta was investigated. Results indicate that the direct impact of Jakarta is mainly restricted to inshore reefs, separating reefs in Jakarta Bay from reefs along the Thousand Islands further north. A spatial patchwork of differentially degraded reefs is present along the islands as a result of localized anthropogenic effects rather than regional gradients. Pollution is the main anthropogenic stressor, with over 80 % of variation in benthic community composition driven by sedimentation rate, NO2, PO4 and Chlorophyll a. Thus, the spatial structure of reefs is directly related to intense anthropogenic pressure from local as well as regional sources. Therefore, improved spatial management that accounts for both local and regional stressors is needed for effective marine conservation.

Daily mean surface meteorology and river discharge in Central Sulawesi for the period 2002-2005

The El Niño/ Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon is the strongest known natural interannual climate fluctuation. The most recent two extreme ENSO events of 1982/83 and 1997/98 severley hit the socio-economy of main parts of Indonesia. As the climate variability is not homogeneous over the whole Archipelago of Indonesia, ENSO events cause negative precipitation anomalies of diverse magnitude and uration in different regions. Understanding the hydrology of humid tropical catchments is an essential prerequisite to investigate the impact of climate variability on the catchment hydrology. Together with the quantitative assessment of future water resource changes they are essential tools to develop mitigation strategies on a catchment scale. These results can be integrated into long term Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) strategies. The general objective of this study is to investigate and quantify the impact of ENSO caused climate variability on the water balance and the implications for water resources of a mesoscale tropical catchment.

Measured daily precipitation sums over Central Sulawesi for the period 1981-1999

Data compiled within the IMPENSO project. The Impact of ENSO on Sustainable Water Management and the Decision-Making Community at a Rainforest Margin in Indonesia (IMPENSO), http://www.gwdg.de/~impenso, was a German-Indonesian research project (2003-2007) that has studied the impact of ENSO (El Nino-Southern Oscillation) on the water resources and the agricultural production in the PALU RIVER watershed in Central Sulawesi. ENSO is a climate variability that causes serious droughts in Indonesia and other countries of South-East Asia. The last ENSO event occurred in 1997. As in other regions, many farmers in Central Sulawesi suffered from reduced crop yields and lost their livestock. A better prediction of ENSO and the development of coping strategies would help local communities mitigate the impact of ENSO on rural livelihoods and food security. The IMPENSO project deals with the impact of the climate variability ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) on water resource management and the local communities in the Palu River watershed of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. The project consists of three interrelated sub-projects, which study the local and regional manifestation of ENSO using the Regional Climate Models REMO and GESIMA (Sub-project A), quantify the impact of ENSO on the availability of water for agriculture and other uses, using the distributed hydrological model WaSiM-ETH (Sub-project B), and analyze the socio-economic impact and the policy implications of ENSO on the basis of a production function analysis, a household vulnerability analysis, and a linear programming model (Sub-project C). The models used in the three sub-projects will be integrated to simulate joint scenarios that are defined in collaboration with local stakeholders and are relevant for the design of coping strategies.

From the Black Mountain to Waziristan, being an account of the border countries and the more turbulent of the tribes controlled by the North-west frontier province, and of our military relations with them in the past.

Mode of access: Internet.