Another prideful accomplishment has been achieved by a student of Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in a national writing competition held at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture. Ahmad Cahyadi from Faculty of Geography won the first place in the Earth’s Challenge competition on June 6.
In the competition with the theme To Sustain the Atmosphere as One of the Environmental Conservation Efforts, this Environmental Geography student proposed a solution in reducing global warming through karst region zoning. Ahmad mentioned, karst areas in Indonesia have a strategic function in the absorption of carbon dioxide gases (CO2). "The absorption of carbon dioxide in karst areas occurs at the karstification point. Karstification takes place with a certain equilibrium chemical reaction in which every 1000 kg of limestone dissolution will be followed by absorption of carbon dioxide by as much as 120 kilograms," he explained on Tuesday (8/6), on the campus of UGM.
Ahmad said that the results of the research conducted by two lecturer staff of Faculty of Geography, Drs. Eko Haryono, M.Si and Tjahyono Nugroho Adji, M.Sc., Tech., showed that the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the 1,300km2 karst area of Mount Sewu is 72,804 per year.
Ahmad said karstification processes in Indonesian karst areas will take place very intensively. This is due to the Indonesia position which is located in tropical areas, thus having high precipitation. "Precipitation becomes a very influential factor in karstification process. Karstification will only occur if the karst area is located in areas where precipitation rate is more than 250 mm/year. Thus, the greater precipitation, the more intensive karstification is," he explained.
These days, he continued, the CO2 absorption function in the Indonesian karst areas is hampered due to limestone mining activities using overburden (peeling) karst cone method. The mining performed either manually or using heavy equipment causes the loss of imestone epikarst layers, consequently karstification can not occur.
Further said by the man born in Gunung Kidul, March 25, 1989 that karstification is very reliant on the presence of epikarst layer due to limestone low ability to pass water, so, a layer of water storage is needed to retain the water. After the water seeps in through the pores of limestone, karstification process will begin. "The absence of epikarst layer will make water flow instantly as surface runoff, thus it will easily and quickly evaporate, preventing karstification," he explained.
According to Ahmad, zoning/classification of karst area based on the occurring Karstification level is very important to do. Given the karst area zoning, better environmental management plan can be prepared, for example by moving the limestone quarry area to limestone area that are not experiencing karstification or region where karstification does not intensively develop. With these efforts, absorption of CO2 and hydrological function in the karst region is not disrupted.
"Up to now, the zoning for the karst area has not been conducted intensively by the local government that has karst regions. This impacts on the preparation of regional development and spatial planning that does not much consider the efforts to minimize environmental impacts of karst exploration activities," explained the student who also won the second place in Central Java and Yogyakarta Scientific Paper Competition at University of Sebelas Maret in April.
He added, the zoning process can be done using remote sensing technology to ease the delineation of karst areas, enhanced by incorporating other spatial data, such as geological map, visual map of the earth, and field surveys to justify.