LAMANRIAU.COM, PEKANBARU – Head of the Peat Restoration Agency (BRG) Nazir Foead predicts that Riau Province will experience a drought of up to seven months in 2020.
“Based on the BMKG (Climatology and Geophysics Meteorology) record that 2020 specifically in Riau it is estimated that there will be seven dry season months. From 12 months only five wet months, the rest is dry,” he said, Saturday (12/14).
He explained that the dry season in 2020 is predicted to occur in the first four months at the beginning of the year since February. After that, Riau will enter the rainy season and predicted to be hit again by the dry season in August to October 2020. He said, the drought conditions that hit Riau longer than this 2019.
In fact, he said in 2019 Riau province was already quite badly hit by forest and land fires when twice the dry season period struck the region.
“The 2019 fire that quite surprised us. It happened unexpectedly. Of course we don’t want it to be repeated,” he said.
Nazir said, the central government through the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, the National Disaster Management Agency, the Ministry of Public Works and BRG had repeatedly held coordination meetings.
As a result, he added that all of the above elements agreed to map and carry out prevention with the restoration of peat in a number of peat hydrological units (KHG) together.
“All elements have agreed to go down on a KHG or landscape basis. There are already six landscapes we surveyed going down by air and will decide which landscapes are tilled,” he explained.
“In the past, we often worked at KHG but were rather partial, now we are together. Then all Pokmas (community groups) also close ranks,” he concluded. (ant)
