Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Land Reclamation Development in Indonesia NURYANTO S. SLAMET 1,2 , PAUL DARGUSCH 1 , AMMAR A. AZIZ 3 AND DAVID WADLEY 1 1 School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, 2 Agency for Research and Development, Ministry of Public Works and Housing, Jakarta, Indonesia, 3 School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, The University of Queensland, Gatton, Australia Email: n.slamet@uq.edu.au ABSTRACT Land reclamation activities can, directly and indirectly, impact the environment. Examples of direct efects include alterations in coastal geomorphology, variations in the chemical content of water and changes in biological com- position along the littoral zone. The indirect impacts can involve geological changes and increase vulnerability to natural disasters. Reclamation processes also result in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from vehicle and machinery fuel use and through the release of carbon stored in vegetation, soils and sediment in mangroves and seagrass ecosystems. Con- sidering the global extent of land reclamation, the scale of these emissions is likely to be of widespread interest. The case of Jakarta Bay provides useful insights that can contribute to the improved environmental management of kindred land development projects in Indonesia and other parts of Asia. More than 5,100 ha of new land mass is planned from the Jakarta Bay reclamation. Preliminary analysis suggests that 30% of the planned area will require more than 150.7 million cubic metres of sand sourced from 8,628 ha of marine quarry area. In this study, we examine the sources of GHG emis- sions in these activities and the potential opportunities available to reduce them. The audience for this paper includes policymakers, environmental practitioners, city developers and postgraduate scholars dealing with land reclamation or other major infrastructure developments. INTRODUCTION Among the world’s nations, Indonesia has the second longest coastline [1]. Economic activities in its archipel- ago have been historically located in coastal areas [2], espe- cially on Java island. Demand for new landmasses close to developed areas is escalating in the coastal zone. Plans for reclamation in Indonesia have thus increased in the past couple of years. Globally, China and the Netherland are the countries with the highest reclaimed land areas (Figure 1). Tech- nological development of construction methods has expanded the scope and increased the scale of possible operations. Due to this acceleration, the adaptation of coastal habitats to rapid change can be limited. Land reclamation projects have a significant bearing on the environment in terms of their physical [7, 8], eco- logical [9], geotechnical [10] and social and economical make-up [3]. As distinct from slower-moving, natural, physical and geographical change, reclamation can • change sea currents and coastal bathymetry [7, 11]; • influence water pH, salinity, electric conductivity and pollutant counts [9]; • cause loss of biodiversity with a reduction of fish density and species and a downturn in the water bird population [3, 12]; and • create geological disasters such as liquefaction and land subsidence [4, 5, 13]. Land reclamation is one of the main causes of the loss of vegetated coastal areas in tropical regions [14]. These zones play a significant role in climate change mitigation, because they absorb a large share of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [15–17]. Saline marshes [18], mangrove forests [15] and sea- grasses [19, 20] are the significant elements in coastal carbon ARTICLE CASE Case Studies in the Environment, 2018, pps. 1–9. electronic ISSN 2473-9510. © 2018 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/cse.2017.000919 1