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  • WHERE I WORK

How I use tide gauges to develop geospatial maps

Geographer Muh Aris Marfai collects reference data for Indonesia’s coastal areas to prepare for the impacts of climate change.
By
  1. Nikki Forrester

    1. Nikki Forrester is a science journalist based in Davis, West Virginia.

Muh Aris Marfai measures the ground level compared to level zero of the sea (average sea level) using a geodetic digital level, at a tide gauge station at the Sunda Kelapa port of Jakarta, Indonesia.

Muh Aris Marfai is head of the Geospatial Information Agency of Indonesia in Bogor and a geography researcher at the Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. Credit: Gaia Squarci for Nature

“Indonesia comprises more than 17,000 islands. Because so much of the country is surrounded by water, it’s important to pay attention to coastal areas. Many coastal cities, including Jakarta, are experiencing subsidence owing to geological processes and coastal dynamics. Rising sea levels, changing tides and flooding, resulting from climate change, are already causing suffering along the northern coast of Java.

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Nature 628, 228 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00908-w

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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