Community Perceptions Towards the Causes of Flood in Air Pacah Area, Padang City, Indonesia

There is a rapid development in Air Pacah area since 1999. This area used to be a remote area and a retarding basin of Padang City. In 2011, it was designated as the new head quarter complex for Padang City government. One of the negatife impacts of its development was the increase of flood frequency. In order to mitigate the flood, government conducted a flood control project at Maransi River which passes this area. However, this project has not completed yet due to land acquisition problem. Accordingly, this paper aims to identify community perception on flood causes and into what extent the flood control project has benifited the community. Thirty semi-structure interviews were conducted between May and October 2015 and analysed using descriptive statistic and content analysis method. It was found that community feels that there has been an increase in flood frequency, flood depth, and flood duration. There are four dominant factors that have significant impact on flood, rain duration, low infiltration area, massive construction of real estates and offices, and bad drainage system. Community who live exactly next to the construction site has benefited from the flood control project, on the other hand community at the upstream has not feel the positive impact yet because the construction halted due to land aquisation problem. As a result, it is strongly recommended that government to immediately acquire the land needed for the flood control project.