Indonesia is using a weather modification technique called cloud seeding around the construction site of its future capital to reduce intense rainfall that is hampering the construction of the new city, a weather agency official said on Friday.
The planned city of Nusantara will begin operating on August 17, replacing traffic-clogged and sinking Jakarta as Indonesia’s new capital.
But Tri Handoko Seto, a senior official at Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency (BMKG), said contractors whose city construction work was being hampered by daily downpours had urged authorities to change the weather.
“They submitted a request to carry out a weather modification operation, so that the daily rainfall could be diverted, eliminated in a certain area, or at least reduced,” Seto told AFP.
Cloud seeding, which involves adding tiny particles or chemicals to manipulate existing clouds, has gained popularity around the world as a way to induce rainfall to combat drought or increase local water supplies.
But scientists say this technique cannot produce weather or rainfall of the magnitude seen in countries like Germany and the United States.
Seto said cloud seeding operations around Nusantara began last week and would end on Sunday, after which an assessment would be conducted to determine whether it needed to continue.
He said this is the first time authorities have used cloud seeding around a planned city to reduce rainfall.
Floods and landslides are common during the vast archipelago’s six-month rainy season and BMKG has forecast that torrential rains around Nusantara will continue until August.
The Indonesian government aims to have 1.9 million people living in Nusantara by 2045, which will lead to increased human and industrial activity in the heart of Borneo.
Environmentalists have warned that the planned city would accelerate deforestation in one of the world’s largest tropical rainforests.
Thousands of civil servants are expected to move into the city to begin work in September, but Jakarta’s plan has already been delayed by several months because of the slow construction process.
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