Introducing Dr Emma Colven, SEAC Visiting Fellow and Assistant Professor of Global Environment at the University of Oklahoma.
1.What will you be working on during your time as SEAC Visiting Fellow?
My current research aims to understand the role of speculative urban development in generating water crises, and how water crises in turn shape real estate markets in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city. The goal of the research is to provide insights into the co-production of transformations in water regimes and land markets.
In recent decades, Jakarta’s mangroves, green spaces, and floodplains have been replaced with concrete. This contributes to worsening the impacts of flooding caused by monsoon rains. Jakarta also experiences extremely high land subsidence rates caused largely by deep groundwater extraction and construction loads, making this delta city vulnerable to coastal flooding.
At least superficially, Jakarta’s real estate industry s