Prabowo Orders El Niño Impact Mitigation, BMKG to Enhance Cloud Seeding

President Prabowo Subianto has instructed his administration to take a series of measures to face the potential impacts of drought, which coincides with the El Niño phenomenon, including ensuring water availability and preventing forest and land fires. The Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) will strengthen its support in facing the dry season that coincides with El Niño this year. According to BMKG Head Teuku Faisal Fathani, these measures will be carried out through efforts to maintain water availability in reservoirs and cloud seeding operations. "There are two aspects: one is maintaining water availability through reservoirs, by filling them with cloud seeding and so on. The other is preventing forest and land fires through wetting the easily flammable lands via cloud seeding. There has been significant reinforcement on cloud seeding," Fathani said after a meeting with President Prabowo at the Merdeka Palace in Jakarta on Tuesday (07/27/2026). Cloud seeding operations will be a primary focus in six provinces: Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, and South Kalimantan. These operations will be conducted periodically to maintain soil moisture in peatlands, thus reducing fire risk. "We are also conducting periodic cloud seeding operations in the Riau Islands, and in Aceh, and several other locations depending on the situation and conditions," Fathani added. Furthermore, cloud seeding will be utilized to help replenish water levels in various reservoirs across Indonesia. BMKG will collaborate with multiple ministries and agencies to ensure water availability for power generation (PLTA), irrigation, and clean water supply. "For drought, BMKG is conducting several cloud seeding operations, in collaboration with BNPB (National Disaster Management Agency), the Ministry of Forestry, and private entities, to fill reservoirs. We are attempting to fill some of the 240 reservoirs in Indonesia so they can be used for PLTA, irrigation, and clean water," Fathani explained. These two measures are part of the government's strategy to prioritize preventive efforts against drought and forest/land fires. Fathani stated that this approach refines previous responses, which were more focused on extinguishing fires after they occurred. "We are not just waiting for hotspots to appear and then extinguishing them with water bombing or suppressants. Instead, when groundwater levels have decreased, we implement cloud seeding that can bring down millions of cubic meters of water and saturate the area. Consequently, we see that forest and land fires are relatively more controllable now compared to before 2015," Fathani concluded. Source: Liputan6