Building Coastal City Resilience in Pekalongan

Coastal landscape management or protection, Knowledge creation and awareness raising, Strategy, plan or policy development, Improved governance of green or blue areas

This project is specifically designed with a particular focus on pro-poor adaptation actions that involve and benefit the most vulnerable communities in Pekalongan city (1). This will be achieved through three actions that will be paramount, namely: safekeeping actions, surviving actions, and sustaining actions. The nature-based solution intervention is part of (1) and (3). The main goals of the interventions were defined below: 1. To restore the mangrove ecosystem in order to increase the natural protection of the coastal area from flood hazards and risk exposure (coastal erosion). And, to reduce vulnerability through a combination of semi-hard construction and ecosystem-based solution (the development and/or enforcement of coastal sediment to support the growth of mangroves that will be planted along the coastline of Pekalongan City). (1,2) 2. To develop resilient livelihood strategies that will increase food security but not damage the ecosystem through aquafarming developed and implemented by the community. (1) 3. To build awareness of the community in order to increase its adaptive capacity to climate change impact. (2) 4. To reduce adverse impact from anthropogenic activity through changes in coastal zoning and waste management e.g. community-based waste reduction and recycling schemes and energy-efficient building construction techniques. (1) 5. To strengthen collaboration between national and local governments in the climate adaptation context and aid the production of toolkits and methodologies in coastal resilience for the national government. (1,2)

The inception phase of the 3S-Project started on 23 January 2021 and ended with the project kick-off held on 15 July 2021. The pandemic situation during this period poses challenges in conducting immediate coordination with the Municipal Government of Pekalongan City. Nevertheless, the project kick-off consisted of an introduction session to the project and intended intervention related to the 3S-approach and a technical session focusing on the coastal protection that currently sparks concerns among various stakeholders of Pekalongan City, especially the Municipal Government based on the widening impact of sea level rise along the city’s coastline. This was followed by a participatory workshop on 12 and 13 August to synchronise and synergise the provincial and municipal government plans and the intervention plan of the 3S-Project, especially related to the coastal protection system. Site visits were conducted during this time with the UN's Adaptation Fund team, the Kemitraan team, as well as 3 renowned universities from Semarang, Bogor and Bandung. It is expected now that a sediment trap will be built. Once the sediment is built and reach certain stability, mangrove can be planted and further grow naturally. During the installation of the construction for sediment trap, mangrove saplings can already be prepared in the nursery to be planted when the sediment is ready. The activities proposed are expected to be completed in a three-year period. The first year will be the programme preparation stage with activities that are mostly intended to strengthen local stakeholders’ (including community) awareness and understanding of the climate-related issue and also build their ownership of the programme. Key studies and assessments conducted at this stage, not only will serve the purpose of building stakeholders’ knowledge and awareness but also ensure that the proposed actions will not lead to maladaptation and further jeopardise Pekalongan City's sustainability. The studies and assessments are expected to be completed within a time frame of 6 months. Afterwards, the programme will focus on action implementation. This arrangement is aimed to ensure the programme is completed in a timely manner. (1,2)

• National-level government
• Local government/Municipality
• Citizens or community groups
• Food producers and cultivators (i.e. farmers, gardeners)
• Young people and children
• Marginalized groups: Elderly people, Socio-economically disadvantaged populations (e.g. low-income households, unemployed)