Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government needs to establish flood early warning systems with people`s active participation in upstream and downstream river basins, a legislator said.

"A program to establish a flood early warning system can be implemented in a short time with significant results in terms of reducing people`s material losses," Sigit Sosiantomo, a member of the House of Representatives Commission V`s Working Committee on Floods, said here on Wednesday.

Sigit said a flood early warning system would be useful not only during the rainy season but also in the run up to the end of the dry season.

He asked the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) to proactively provide regional governments with easily-understood information about climate conditions and make weather forecasts for at least one or two months ahead.

That way, Sigit said, people could take precautionary measures against the impact of flooding that could happen any time.

He added that intensive communications between the government and the people on the mechanism of an early warning system would make people more aware of the danger of floods.(*)

Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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