Between March 2024 and July 2024, The Water Agency and HKV was engaged in this assignment in Jakarta and Semarang. The Smart Water Resources Management System (SWRMS) project focuses on stakeholders’ collaboration and ambition for a system that integrates management of ground and surface water. Gradually, the smart system is aimed to reduce the overextraction of groundwater and enhance a data-driven approach to sustainably manage water resources.

In this first phase of developing a SWRMS, the Consortium team focused on building relationships through close engagements with local government agencies and regional water company (in total, more than ten dinas and badan/ government agencies and PDAM based in Semarang). Through exploring their water user stories, the Consortium team put together what these agencies would wish to see from the smart system, understand their expected and desired roles, and how they would like to be part of the system and benefit from it.

To assess and identify the needs and shared ambitions of local stakeholders, the Consortium team organised a workshop with over twenty young professionals from various agencies. These participants were divided into four teams to explore the system’s concept through current and future scenarios. Together, they examined the system’s functions, mapped key stakeholders, identified potential bottlenecks, and evaluated how the system would support decision-making processes.