Impacts of Urban and Industrial Development on Groundwater, Bandung, West Java, Indonesia^*)

by : Soetrisno S.^**)

 

Groundwater Usage

Since the early development of the city of Bandung, in late of 19^th century, groundwater resources played an important role in supplying water demand. Following the industrial era in 1970’s, Bandung became a great urban area which attracted people to migrate from rural area nearby to Bandung city. In that time groundwater abstraction was 10.5 m³/year, which number of wells was recorded less than 300. This affected to the rapid growth of population, which is recorded 3 - 4 % per annum in 1990. In other sector, industry become a major sector of economic growth in the Greater Bandung, which textile is a leading industry. Hence, groundwater usage greatly accelerated conforming to the above situation.

In 1995 municipal water supply abstracted groundwater 18 Mega liter/day, together with spring water and surface water, it supplied about 43 % drinking water demand in the Greater Bandung, while most rest of it relies on groundwater resources.

In the same period, 66.9 million m³ of groundwater has been abstracted from deeper aquifer system, 80 % of which is used by the industrial sector. This figure was recorded from 2225 licenced wells, while it was believed that many illegal wells tapped the groundwater unrecorded. It is estimated 80 million m³ of groundwater has been pumped by the textile industries alone in 1995. Even there is a great efforts to control groundwater abstraction and to reduce groundwater usage, its effect is still low since groundwater is only the major resources. Groundwater usage is upclining exponentially in the basin after 1970 (Fig. 2), correspond to the increasing of population and industrial development.

Local domestic supply used groundwater from dug wells or shallow boreholes. There is no exact figure concerning the total abstraction from shallow aquifer. However, assuming that 60 % of the total population of 3.5 million used 90 litres per capita per day of groundwater, it is estimated that 69 million m³ of groundwater has been abstracted from the shallow aquifers in Greater Bandung, in 1995.