Towards a Water-Secure Indonesia: How Could the Internet of Things (IoT) Contribute?

Water is an important resource to sustain the life of human being and the optimal functioning of ecosystem. The growth of human population together with the anthropogenic activities have put a pressure on this resource, emerging issues on water security to the fore. Although some studies provided insights on the water management, the incorporation of Internet of Things (IoT) role in supporting water management sector are still limited. This paper seeks to explain the potential role of IoT in managing water resource in order to increase water security of Indonesia. The paper is structured into three parts which include the exploration on the water usage in Indonesia for agriculture and food production, the case-based exploration to identify factors affecting water security in Indonesia, and the exploration of IoT in managing water resource. In Indonesia, water usage for food production accounted for 80%. The water security in irrigation aspect, was found to be moderate to low, similar to the urban water security, while the resilience on water disaster of the people still need to build. The strategies to achieve water security in Indonesia consists of the aspect of water management to provide water to all people inclusively, which include both technical aspect and governance. Another aspect is building the capacity of the people to be able to mitigate, to adapt, and to be resilient in coping the water-related disaster. The use of IoT by the synergy of Arduino and Big Data, particularly in the field of hydroinformatics, using Apache Hadoop system promises significant improvement of water management and governance.