Central Jakarta, Komdigi – President Prabowo Subianto held a limited cabinet meeting with a number of members of the Red and White Cabinet at the Merdeka Palace, Central Jakarta, on Tuesday (28/07/2026). During the meeting, the Head of State instructed his staff to take strategic measures to address the potential impacts of the dry season coinciding with the El Niño phenomenon, with the main focus on maintaining water availability and preventing forest and land fires (karhutla).
Following the meeting, the Head of the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), Teuku Faisal Fathani, conveyed that BMKG would strengthen technical support through two main approaches: maintaining water availability in reservoirs and conducting massive weather modification operations (OMC).
"So there are two aspects: one related to water availability through reservoirs, filling reservoirs with weather modification and so on. Also, to anticipate forest and land fires by wetting fire-prone areas through weather modification. Earlier, much emphasis was placed on weather modification," he explained.
Faisal revealed that six provinces are the main focus for OMC implementation, namely Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, and South Kalimantan. These operations will be conducted periodically to maintain peatland moisture so that it does not easily catch fire.
"Periodic weather modification operations are also carried out to saturate the soil there, the peat soil, so that it is not easily flammable. We are also conducting weather modification in the Riau Islands, as well as in Aceh, and in several other places situationally depending on the situation and conditions," he said.
In addition, OMC is also utilized to help fill water in a number of reservoirs across various regions of Indonesia. This effort is carried out through cross-ministerial and institutional collaboration—including BNPB, the Ministry of Forestry, and the private sector—to maintain water availability for hydroelectric power plants (PLTA), agricultural irrigation, and community clean water needs.
"For drought, BMKG conducts several weather modifications, in cooperation with BNPB, in cooperation with the Ministry of Forestry, and also with the private sector for reservoir filling. Filling the reservoirs in Indonesia—we have 240 reservoirs—we are trying to fill several of them, not all, so that they can function for hydroelectric power, for irrigation, and for clean water," he said.
Faisal added that these two measures are part of the government's strategy that prioritizes preventive efforts—an improvement over the previous approach that focused more on extinguishing fires after they occurred. With this proactive approach, it is hoped that the risks of drought and forest and land fires can be significantly reduced.
"We are not just waiting for hotspots to appear, then extinguishing them with waterbombing, spraying, and so on. But when the groundwater level has dropped, weather modification is carried out to drop millions of cubic meters of water, saturating the area. So now we see that forest and land fires are relatively more controllable compared to before 2015," he concluded.
This swift and collaborative step demonstrates the government's commitment to protecting communities, the agricultural sector, and the ecosystem from the impacts of climate change, while also ensuring national water resilience in the face of extreme weather dynamics.
