Indonesia's Environmental Affairs Ministry is teaming up with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in redesigning the country's river basins so as to be able to tackle apparent impacts of climate change phenomenon, a senior official at the ministry said here on Tuesday.

Arif Yuwono, Climate Change and Environment Disaster Control Deputy Minister at the ministry, said the ministry has learned that almost half of 1,429 natural disasters that occurred from 2003 to 2005 were related to hydrometeorology issues with floods accounted the most.

The floods occurring in the country in the last few years were caused by extreme downpour following the extreme weather changing due to climate change phenomenon, he said.

In anticipating flood disaster control, the ministry planned to engage engineers in redesigning six primary river basins in Java that consisted of Cidanau, Ciujung, Cidurian, Cisadane , Ciliwung and Citarum (or codified as 6 Cis) to address efforts in anticipating water-related problems related to climate change impacts. Citarum river was the largest one that accommodates streams of other rivers.

"With the support from the ADB, Indonesian government would improve policies and capabilities of institutions tasked to control the Citarum river basin so as to encourage public in taking part in efforts to preserve river basin," Arif said in a seminar discussing efforts to strengthen river preservation.

The ADB assistance was allocated to finance development of spatial project in Citarum river basin so as to be resilience in bearing the impacts of climate change, improve the welfare of people living surrounding the river basin and improve the government efforts in mitigating climate change problems.