ABSTRACT
Indonesia has developed tidal swamp area for food production, within an era of 25 years - 1969 to 1994, tidal swamp lands were developed, up to a million hectares, to boost food production in the nation, mainly rice. This development and its expansion were supported by the Transmigration Program. However, there is a major concern that Indonesia might be importing rice again, in the next ten years, if a proper system is not put in place. This is due to the fact that the population growth rate is 3 million per year and a high rate of paddy fields conversion to other uses, about 50 - 100 thousand hectares per year. Also, various natural disasters like earthquakes, landslides, floods, tsunamis, droughts and land fires have negatively affected the national rice production. The government considers rice as a strategic and political commodity and therefore targeted to bounce back production in 2019 and hopes that the country will become the world’s food barn in 2045. The plan is to optimize one million hectares of swamp land in six provinces, namely South Kalimantan, South Sumatra, Lampung, Jambi, Central Kalimantan and South Sulawesi. Wetlands are strongly influenced by water regimes due to river or sea tidal overflows as well as floods from upstream areas. Therefore, the success of swamp development lies in water and land management. This paper presents hydrological and hydrotopographic conditions, as well as the problems faced in water management. The importance of water and land management, the approaches and rules needed to be well established to achieve good production.
