Implementasi Kaji Cepat Hidrologi (RHA) di hulu das Brantas, Jawa Timur

Sumber Brantas Watershed is one out of five sub catchments of the Upper Brantas River, situated in Batu District, East Java, Indonesia and covering an area about 174 km 2 . Recently, the hydrology of the waters hed was considered to be degraded in terms of the quality and quantity of water yield. Fast floods were more often during the rainy seasons, while droughts were more severe during the dry seasons. Much spring water dried out in the dry seasons and two - thir d of them dried out permanently in the last decade. The condition was often related to the rapid change of landuse in the watershed. The natural forest and agroforestry gardens were converted into rain fed agriculture. Analysis on land sat images from 1989 and 2002 showed that 3,702ha of natural forest and 1,153ha of agroforestry gardens has disappeared. Further analysis showed that the area of rain fed agriculture, settlements and shrubs were increasing during that period. This most likely related to the s ocio - economics conditions of local community as well as the variability of stakeholders perception in best watershed management planning and practices. The Rapid Hydrological Appraisal (RHA) implementation at the Sumber Brantas Watershed aimed to test th e methodology, which is claimed to be rapid and cheap, and to validate the GenRiver Model – an important component of the methodology, to learn the stakeholders perceptions on the watershed management and to build an understanding among stakeholders in or der to select the best watershed ma na gement practices. RHA itself is claimed as a rapid and cheap methodology that is important in the early steps of an environmental service activity. The method consists of three stages i.e. scooping, awareness and ident ifying partners. Scooping and identifying partners were reflected from information and data collection about study site, hydrological issues, and stakeholders who involved in the watershed management. Watershed stakeholders consisted of three groups i.e. l ocal community, policy makers and researchers or facilitators. Knowledge, perception and experiences from each group of stakeholders used to be called as LEK (Local Ecological Knowledge), PEK (Policy Ecological Knowledge), and MEK (Modeler Ecological Knowl edge). Meanwhile, the data collection including spatial data, participatory landscape analysis, local and political knowledge assessment about watershed ecology, data analysis related on hydrological condition, and the stakeholders meeting constituted as a package of community awareness about watershed management at the study site

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