Date & Time: October 20, 2022 10:00 am (JST)
Title: Spatial environmental assessment of selected projects under Belt and Road Initiative in Indonesia
Speaker: Dr. Masita Dwi Mandini Manessa (Geography Department and Research Center for Climate Change – University of Indonesia)
Chair: Julie Delos Reyes (CSEAS)
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https://kyoto-u-edu.zoom.us/j/87477716575?pwd=WUswdkovSEpuL3ByM1RzM2MyUmdidz09
Meeting ID: 874 7771 6575
Passcode: 460235
Abstract: Chinese foreign direct investments (FDIs) in Indonesia have increased dramatically since 2013 when the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was announced. The dominant investments are infrastructure development, power plant construction, and mineral extraction and processing. In collaboration with Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, Research Center for Climate Change at the University of Indonesia (RCCC-UI) conducted a spatial environmental assessment for 14 clusters of Chinese funded projects under BRI scheme. The assessment is meant to understand the environmental impacts of the projects by focusing on distance from primary forest (F), vegetation (V) and carbon (C) loss trend, emission of nitrous oxide (NO) as dangerous air pollutant, and the presence of selected endangered species (S). Several interesting findings was found from the parameter observation, namely, most of the site was built very close to the primary forest with vegetation density and carbon contain, undeveloped site, PLTU Paiton shows the high NO2 emission intensity that is almost equal to the emission from Jakarta’s greater areas, and the numbers of endangered species found. Moreover, the environmental condition for each site was evaluated using the sum average overlay method from the ratio value of six observed parameters. From the 14 selected sites of the BRI project, our calculation ranks from the highest to lowest impact to the environment. The Kayan River Cascade Hydropower Project, Morowali industrial park, Batang Toru Hydropower Plant, and SDIC Cement Project are ranked as the top five sites with the most negative impact to the environment.