Editorial: 'Landslides could become Indonesia's worst nightmare'

Although natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes often capture the attention of the media, it is landslides which cause the highest death toll in Indonesia, writes Nithin Coca for SciDevNet and the Asian Scientist. NGOs and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences say Indonesia’s response to landslides in the country needs to be improved.

According to the report which recalls the December 2014 landslide disaster in Banjarnegara, Central Java, an Indonesia National Disaster Management Authority (BNPB) spokesperson believes that land-use change is one of the primary causes of the disaster. “The subsistence farming systems done in the hilly areas [in Central Java] are not accompanied by good land conservation practices ... Population growth and greater volume of rain as a result of climate change have increased the potential for landslides, but the most dominant factor is land degradation from farming activities."