ULOG: 17 "Drastically Degraded Reservoir Water Discharge, Unprocessed Agricultural Land"

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The long dry season that occurred during the last six months resulted in drastic water discharge in a number of small reservoirs or reservoirs in Trenggalek. The impact is that tens of hectares of agricultural land cannot produce, besides that the supply of raw water for people's drinking water is also reduced.

Conditions experienced by farmers and residents in Pule Village / Kecamatan, Trenggalek. Fields of rice fields that usually rely on water supply from Embung Tambong are now left to dry, without any rice plants or crops on top.

One of the residents, Imam Ma'ruf, said that the current water discharge conditions at Embung Tambong had drastically shrunk, the water which normally reaches a depth of 7 meters is currently only 1.5 meters away. So that it cannot be used at all to supply agricultural irrigation needs.
"Now the rice fields are left alone, because they want to be planted with rice, they cannot, they want to be planted with palawija, they cannot, and they both need water," Imam Ma'ruf said on Saturday (9/15/2018).

In addition to having an impact on agricultural land, the conditions for reducing the discharge of embung water also have a direct impact on the supply of clean water for the daily needs of residents. Residents also cannot use the remaining reservoir water.

To meet the needs of clean water, local residents must install water hoses up to a radius of 1 kilometer to be distributed to river water and springs that are above Embung Tambong.

"In fact, there is still water in the above, but yes, the condition has already dropped dramatically, then the residents were immediately sucked up using this water hose," he explained.

Imam further explained that the existence of the embung in his village did not seem to have a major impact on agricultural water supply as well as for household needs because every year continued to experience drought.

"This dam has been built since 2013, but if it's the dry season like this, it can't be used either. Moreover, there is a leak now," he explained.

The same thing was conveyed by other residents of Warso, according to him the drought in the region continues to repeat itself, it hopes that there are concrete steps from the regional and provincial governments to overcome this. Considering the cessation of agricultural activities is sufficient to influence the economic resources of the citizens.

"Actually, if it is arranged on the upstream side, I am sure that the water can still get to the embung. Because of what, at this time people immediately take water from the upstream with a hose, so that the water runs out and cannot flow to the reservoir," explained Warso.

According to him, if the upstream area is structured by dividing water supply for households and irrigation, it is optimistic that some agricultural land can still produce. "If it's like this, it's dead, all rice fields are dry," he added.

The drop in water debit also occurred at Embung Suruh, Trenggalek. The water reservoir is now almost dry, even the remaining water is no longer able to flow into the irrigation stream. Even so, the local community is desperate to use the remaining water from the reservoir to meet their daily needs by sucking using a water hose.