Enhancing Social-Ecological Resilience in Indonesia: A Case of North Pekalongan District, Central Java

Abstract

In the last eight years (2008-2016), some areas in the northern part of Pekalongan have been experiencing coastal inundation. There have been social, economic and physical disruptions caused by coastal inundation particularly on built environments, paddy fields, and fishpond. The capacity of these areas to provide support for community livelihood has decreased significantly. This accumulative environmental change leads to the emerging of vulnerable regions which are characterized by limited social and ecological capability in responding to hazards. In order to enhance the social-ecological resilience, it is necessary to identify how these communities elevate their capacity and improve their livelihood. This paper presents empirical evidence of various pathways on how the community has transformed their capacity to respond to the changing environment due to coastal inundation. Using a case study approach, this paper explores on how the community has learned from their experiences, knowledge, and efforts withdrawn from the past, and then turns them into a better understanding to cope with, to adapt to, and to become resilient from coastal inundation. In-depth interviews with several key persons who are selected by purposive and snowballing sampling method are employed. These key persons represent the most capable person in each sub-district who poses some important data and information related to coastal inundation either as the individual, household members, or community organization members. The scope of area observation is limited to six sub-districts which adjacent to the coast in the North Pekalongan District. This research employs inductive approach and manual coding technique. The research demonstrates that social-ecological resilience will likely enhance in a community which is capable of nurturing flexible networking. Such networking has made it possible for important information, novel knowledge and practical tools and solutions spread over in the community. These are key elements that allow new transformative pathways occur. However, there is various community capacities with different achievement on transformative pathways which need to be engage on the future empowerment initiatives. Only few community of Kandang Panjang Sub-district come to short term resilience due to their awareness on establishing social networking and several actions on environmental quality improvement.

Keywords

• coastal inundation
• community capacity
• livelihood
• social-ecological resilience
• transformative pathways