| Abstrak/Abstract |
Land subsidence has severe physical and economic implications for both
areas and people. Numerous scholars have shown that land subsidence has
had massive impacts at global, national and regional levels, and that the impacts were usually responded to by the government. However, little attention
has been paid to what land subsidence means to people’s daily lives and how
much it costs them. To fill that gap, this article draws on empirical research
carried out in three areas in Indonesia to provide a better understanding of
what land subsidence means to households, and how they respond to the
consequences and how much it costs them to do so. An analysis of a survey of
330 households shows that they have been suffering from various severities of
impacts of land subsidence for an extended period. Whereas some of the
households respond to the impacts by making small preparations or adapting
to the damages, others can do nothing due to a lack of money and their continuously declining earning capacity. Thus, the affected households are effectively throwing money into a bottomless pit. We argue that these households
must escape the vicious circle caused by land subsidence by increasing their
income capacity or even abandoning the affected areas. |
