River Conservation Using SECEEL Approach: A Case Study on East Flood Way River, Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia

Lecturer in Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Diponegoro University, Tembalang Campus, Semarang, Indonesia 50275

^* Author: sriyana808@gmail.com

Abstract

Current practices on river conservation are solely depending on social engineering, cultural, economic and environmental approaches without taking law enforcement into account. This issue becomes critical because river conservation is frequently experiencing conflict without assertive law enforcement. One of the cases is the presence of abundant structures on river bank despite of rules against such practices. This violation is rooted on law enforcement aspect. Therefore, integrated approach incorporating law enforcement is important to be studied. The purpose of this study is to test the effect of this integrated approach named Social Engineering, Culture, Economic, Environment comfort and Law enforcement (SECEEL) against river conservation on river bank. The analysis method is quantitative approach using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS – SEM) program involving 150 respondents as a sample of approximately 400 habitants in East Flood Way river, Semarang. The result shows that higher social engineering value and economic expediency together with lower rule of law are creating higher environment comfort level along the river bank. Meanwhile, more positive cultural values will decrease the level of environment comfort on the area. Interestingly, the higher the comfort level of the environment along the river will decrease the value of conservation.