The Indonesia Healthy Rivers Challenge served as a capacity building and education program to further understand the Welang River. The program is conducted by inviting Indonesian students and young professionals to create their vision and idea of integrated flood management in the Welang River. Teams will be mentored by a mix of Indonesian and Dutch water experts from various organisations and companies.

In this Master Plan, the teams should articulate their original perspective on how flooding could be reduced through a mix of solutions/interventions/approaches while balancing the interests of/impacts on the built, social, natural and economic environment.

Indonesia Healthy Rivers Challenge 2020 program was conducted in 3 phases from 9 November 2020 to 18 March 2021. Held with a hybrid combination of online and online, the program was aimed to enhance the competence of participating students and young professionals throughout classroom experience with actual cases on the ground, collaboration, field trips, and mentorship in developing a holistic river masterplan.

The 30 carefully-selected participants were divided into five groups, with one expert as a mentor for each team. Their assignment was to create a masterplan to solve the current flooding problems in the Welang River from upstream to downstream. In developing their ideas, participants used the “4 Environment” approach: natural environment, built environment, economic environment, and social environment.

In consultation with their expert mentors, teams were free to choose perspectives that highlighted specific technical and nontechnical approaches, such as institutional collaboration, nature-based solutions, community-participation, etc.