After successfully making Jakarta proud with the world title at the 2022 WSIS Prizes, the Jakarta Smart City (JSC) under Jakarta Communications, Informatics, and Statistics Agency (Diskominfotik) won the first champion trophy at the international IDC Smart City Asia/2022 Pacific Awards for Flood Control System innovation.

It was developed to improve the previous flood control system

It is the second time in a row for Jakarta after 2021 through the JAKI application. This time, they achieved the best innovation for Public Safety — Next-Generation Emergency Services through Flood Control System.

"We developed this flood control system after the big flood that occurred in early 2020. It was developed to improve the previous flood control system which used manual into a science-based management system to support data-based decision making and information dissemination quickly and accurately to the public. This also gets support through our scientific studies," explained Jakarta Smart City BLUD Head Yudhistira Nugraha, as quoted by Jakarta PPID's press release, Friday (6/10).

As a result, the system had managed to beat innovations from other countries, as follows:

1. China: ICT-based Emergency Management, Yangzhou Emergency Management Bureau

2. Taiwan: Three-dimensional Response and Disaster Reduction Smart-Cloud System Development in Taoyuan City, Taoyuan City Government

3. Australia: Bushfire Modeling and Prediction, CSIRO; and

4. Philippines: HazardHunterPH, The Department of Science and Technology — Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (DOST-PHIVOLCS)

"Congrats to the Diskominfotik for the victory. It's amazing to see the positive impact and progress made by local governments with more mature digital capabilities. This flood control system is an excellent example of using new technology to help solve a city's problems and improve the quality of life for its residents," expressed Country Manager IDC Indonesia Mevira Munindra.

How this system became the Best Innovation, moreover the latest achievement for Jakarta certainly did not come suddenly but through careful thought and research related to flood management, including mitigation. It is one of the implementations of the smart city concept that is present to make data-based policies to detect areas that are potentially inundated with water.

It collects historical data and knowledge, as well as performs predictive analysis to help improve the government's ability to detect disasters, speed up response times through the use of the system, and real-time surveillance.

Then it uses the artificial intelligence capabilities found in IoT (Internet of Things) devices to pull and process large amounts of data and machine learning to improve model accuracy, including completed with sensors at 178 locations as well as weather data to get a real-time picture of the situation and conditions to predict where flooding will occur.

It can also provide input for red flags, warnings, and recommendations for decision-making. In other words, the innovation not only speeds up the response but also makes the flood control process more efficient and effective.

Through the system, the Water Resources Service (DSDA) officers no longer need to manually input monitoring data.

The victory cannot be separated from the contributions and collaborations of the community and the ranks of the Jakarta administration, especially the Water Resources (SDA) Agency, Regional Disaster Management Agency, Cipta Karya Agency, Spatial Planning and Land Agency, and Jakarta Smart City as well as collaborating with PT XL Axiata and SAS Institute.

In the future, the system would play an important role in flood prevention measures in the capital, besides continuing the 9-4-2 flood control program currently being implemented by DSDA, namely 9 polders, 4 reservoirs, and 2 river revitalization.