Denpasar

Endowed with vast natural landscapes and cultural richness, Bali is Indonesia’s most attractive tourism destination. The beach area is by far the most attractive destination and it is where most of the economic activity takes place.

Rice fields with complex irrigation systems, locally known as subak, are part of Bali’s cultural and natural heritage as well as an important tourism attraction.

However, 60% of subak areas in Denpasar (Bali’s capital) have been lost during the period 2002–2013, mainly because of urban expansion.

Aiming to preserve its culture and boost local economy the EcoVillage concept, an urban retrofit project, was developed by Denpasar’s local authorities. The project envisions conserving existing subak areas by including basic public space infrastructure in the fields. What the city of Denpasar is trying to develop is a productive / natural reservoir / public space solution.

In this project, BAPPEDA Kota Denpasar and City Planning Labs gathered the vision from key stakeholders in order to develop a set of scenarios for 2030 for Kota Denpasar.

More than 400 possible scenarios were modeled and analyzed with a range of 14 indicators that portray social, economical and environmental aspects. From these scenarios, one was identified to reduce investment costs and significantly contribute to the stakeholders vision: replicating the EcoVillage concept, although with an increase of population density in the surrounding areas.

When modeling the replication of EcoVillages across the city, we noticed that, in addition to increased proximity to public space, the scenario resulted also in a significant impact on cost-related indicators. A decrease of 74% in yearly expenses is observed in the infrastructure costs indicator when compared to the Business as Usual scenario.

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