The Role of City Diplomacy for Sustainable Environment : Study Case of River Restoration in Bandung

The concept of sister cities as a cooperation mechanism for sub-national actors has been spread and grown significantly for these 70 years. The issues covered can involve not only economics and culture but also the sustainability of the environment. As the world faces extreme climate change challenges, cities become the most vulnerable areas. This paper examined the role of city diplomacy between Bandung and Seoul concerning the restoration of Cikapundung river. How strategic was this cooperation scheme in promoting a better environment and preservation as both cities have large populations and modern lifestyles? The research used qualitative method through a study case. The data were collected through secondary resources, such as government documents, journals, and databases. The analysis found that city diplomacy has a strategic role in solving the primary problem of river damage. Both governments collaborated with other actors to rehabilitate the river. Unfortunately, there was no ongoing sustainable cooperation to preserve the river. There are still more stages that need to be completed to fulfill the standard of river management. We hope there will be sustainable cooperation to support a sustainable environment in the future as the impact could be directly felt by all the living beings within it.


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Information, 2021). This condition brought a huge impact on human beings and the environment.
From 2001 to 2018, there were 74% of natural disaster-related to water. The damage cause contamination of water which lead to limited access to drink and give spillover effect toward various diseases such as dehydration, diarrhea, and even death (2). For rivers, the dark future is already predicted through the simulation of daily river flows  (4). In Sumatera Island, Indonesia, The Batanghari River basin was disrupted by the potential change of flood inundation by climate change. The change could harm the peatland that supports the wetland environment (5). In Citarum River Basin, West Java Province, Indonesia, the water yield volume was a decline from 2006 until 2018. The rainfall volume influenced it compared to the reuse of the river area (6). IAPA smart city development. The restoration of the river in Cikapundung was part of the cooperation program (19).
This cooperation brought positive impact not only for Bandung but also for other municipals. General Director of Water Resource of PUPR said that the Cikapundung transformation was a success and could be the national pilot of river restoration. This is because accommodated a representative facility and infrastructure for people. Both functional and esthetic aspects are also found in this river (20). The regent of Cirebon and Subang was interested in the revitalization project and had already built communication with the Governor of West Java which also was the previous major of Bandung, Ridwan Kamil (21). In 2019, Ridwan Kamil as the governor of West Java expand his vision through the restoration of the Kalimalang river in Bekasi (22).
Unfortunately, there's no further information found related to the cooperation in the follow-up of river restoration plan since 2016. Some potential problems still rise from the river utilization. The support facility such as food courts brough potential trash and waste. Cleanliness of the area and waste management should be maintained (23).
Domestic and public trash still fill the river of Cikapundung in 2021 (24). Jong-Ho Shin, the person in charge of Cikapundung restoration already said that there's should be a master plan for river rehabilitation. Sanitation recovery was the priority action and followed by increase economic condition around the river (25). But until 2020, there's still the sad condition of sanitation in these riverbanks. There's no standard operating procedure implemented for household sanitation in this area (26).
How far the sister cooperation could contribute to the optimization of Cikapundung's restoration and sustainability of the environment? If the goal of the restoration was to manage accommodates social activities, preserve water quality, flood control, the previous steps seem still has a long way to accomplished (27). This paper seeks the scope of sister city implementation between Bandung and Seoul in Cikapundung river restoration. It will be followed by an analysis of the potential capability of both actors to strengthen their cooperation through a sustainable river management concept. From the analysis, the research expects in mapping the stage of river restoration. From this mapping, hopefully, this paper could contribute to giving prospective capital which could explore by both sides in optimizing river management. It also suggests a detailed strategic partnership for Bandung-Seoul in the future related to supporting global environmental protection, from the river aspect.

Bandung-Kawasaki Cooperation in Improving Water Quality: Previous Study
The cooperation between these two entities was formalized through the sign of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2016. The goal of cooperation focus on bringing back a better quality of water in the Citarum river. The operational project covered two measures. The first one was the monitoring of water quality using data management and utilization. Methods of inspections also followed. The second one was applied regulating and participatory approach. The participants include but are not limited to industries and household sectors. The goal also offers dissemination of the experience and the know-how of the Citarum project to other local governments (28).
At the operational level, the cooperation activities categorize into three forms. All activities put the Kawasaki as the mentor for the Bandung team. The first one has conducted a workshop to support the formulation of a water quality improvement plan.
The second activity followed was giving lectures on regulating or participatory approach and monitoring. The third activity has held dissemination of know-how to other local governments (28).
There's a specific target reached in each activity. For the first activity, The participant gained an understanding of the regulatory or social administration framework for Japan.
The participant also got deepened understanding of the monitoring framework and its implementation. The second activity gave the participant knowledge and soft skill of procedures and practical exercises related to regulatory administration. The participant could identify the issues and make some points in formulating and responding to the river water quality improvement measures of Kawasaki City in the past. The knowledge of decentralized domestic wastewater treatment helps their response to the condition based on the specific situation. The business orientation is also part of the lecture theme to promote wastewater treatment. In dealing with a certain obstacle, there's also a topic related to information disclosure and the risk of communication. Maintaining the accuracy of water quality analysis becomes the main theme or lecture. The third activity, the dissemination session was sharing certain experiences, methods, which could be adopted in Bandung. Some of the Japanese technology-shared was "jokaso" and septic tanks (28) IAPA

The Restoration of Cheonggyecheon River
The river is located in the capital city of South Korea. It's an ancient river which has already been there for 600 years. The length of the area is 605.6 km 2 . It has 10.3 million people. Since the early 20 ℎ century the river becomes people's gravity as the water could fulfill their daily needs. The people settlements in the riverbanks getting slum and causing a major problem, sanitation. The government tried to find a solution by covering the area on the highway in 1958. Until 2002 the highway brough the market environment on both sides of the street. Another form of density raised and becomes another problem. There are also safety problems related to the highway which cost a high amount of maintenance (29).
In 2002 the government decided to restore the area. There are some reasons published. It's a fundamental solution to the safety problem. It's also part of the recovery of history and culture. Revitalization of the downtown area is a must to balance regional development. And a shifting paradigm of urban management leads to the development of high quality of life and a friendly city for a better environment (29).
The first part of the project was to revitalize 5,84 km of the river by demoralizing the structure of the highway. The river design was reconstructed to meet the 2grade local river standard. It also has to secure the stream capacity for 200 years of frequency of rainfall (118mm/hr). The design also considered the flood level with an accurate estimation.
The restoration will contribute to a better water supply. It includes a waterway plan, water supply plan, and targeted certain water quality-better than the 2 grade-. The sewer system was also prepared with a combined design to manage rainfall and wastewater. The capacity for both systems targeted 3 times of estimated wastewater.
The design of the bridge along the river should minimize flow resistance but also could create cultural places. There're 22 bridges planed to be built at that time. The design of the bridge was put in the international concept design competition. The landscape design is divided into three concept areas. The upstream use a "history" concept, the middle use "culture+urban", and the downstream use the concept "nature" (29).
The restoration project also faced various obstacles and challenges. Cheonggye road has already become an urban backbone corridor. Around 170.000 vehicles pass through this highway every day. The merchants around the project area were also disturbed by the pollution of the project. The project also influences the decline of business activities.
These challenges could be overcome by the team and government with the provision of a better public transportation system and improvement of the traffic system. There The project not only brought direct impacts but also indirect impacts. The changes in the urban management paradigm rise among the people, the community, the government, the Seoul people. The historic restoration proved could happen and lives side by side with the modern lives. Nature and ecological restoration could be seen along the river. Theres also a CBD regenaration. And last but not least, the effort could be a good example of solving conflict over a public project and a proof of successful project management (29).

The Method
This paper will be examined with qualitative, specifically case study method. From the international relations perspective, Lai and Roccu expand the construction meaning of the study case. It's not only a selected case chosen by the researcher or based on the trending events or phenomena at that current time but it's "…constructed through a dynamic interaction with theory…knowledge is produced through extensions rather than generalization" (30). They offer to extend understanding of study case method with non-positivist perspectives or at least non-positivist experience on research. So, the journey by using this method could be operational or counter-operational of analytical tools (theories, concepts, models, frameworks, etc). During the research process, the case study method offers certain construction through simoultan relations in observation, while still keeping an eye with global power and its dynamic situation which could shape further deep analysis. The data collection for this research was gathered from secondary sources such as government documents, government statements, papers, journals, reports, and databases. The scope of research was also limited to river restoration cooperation between Bandung -Seoul from 2016 until 2020 as the expert from Seoul was appointed as the consultant of the restoration. Its analysis from one side of actor perspectives, Bandung, as the data gathered mostly could be accessed.

Sustainable Urban River Management
There are few conceptual frameworks to analyze this study case. The first step of analysis will be explained through sustainable river management in urban area concept to describe and evaluate the Cikapundung restoration program. These concepts were chosen because the river is located in the central activity of Bandung city. The process of collaboration between Bandung and Seoul will be analyzed using the role of sister city cooperation.
According to Larsen and Gujer (1997), building sustainable water management in urban areas requires various components to be considered. in managing the river is also part of the mindset which needs to be changed. The use of wastewater, for example, should be seen as a prospective alternative method to preserve the water and it will grow to better management as time passed. New technology will become a supporting system of sustainable urban water management.
But Larsen and Gujer suggest keeping using essential infrastructure which already existed. This is also part of addressing any transition condition so the response could be taken lightly without any burden (31).

Environmental City Diplomacy
As sustainable urban water management is not only pursued by the local government itself, there's a need to collaborate with other actors to maximize the effort and accom- Melissen agreed with the UCLG statement which put this cooperation's role as the creator of the employment sector, initiator for regeneration of urban, and part of social inclusion (33). She also explained the other role which is concerned with exchanging values (33). The role of city diplomacy in the network dimension means could achieve higher targets or goals through the organization on a specific level, either regional or global with other actors. In the last dimension, representation, the role is a representative at the international stage. This representative role includes the capability and effort to participate in the decision-making process on regional or international organizations.

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The goal of participating is to gain more influence. This goal also describes another role called the lobbyist (33). All of the dimensions showed the pragmatism of cities' effort rather than the idealism in the earlier present.
Grandi (2020) tried to specify environmental diplomacy roled by local actors. The rising of city networks cooperating on environmental issues such as climate change showed how urgent this thing is for them.

Results and Discussion
Bandung Bandung city government also be part of these projects. The first project was mainly handled by ITB with river Cikapundung as the pilot area. The main purpose at that time was to "develop, implement, and apply innovative models for bio-eco engineering technology" (37). The monitoring of water quality which involved the community was the implementation strategy. The project found four general outcomes which develop the utilization of eco-technology. It also involves the community as the closest user of the river. The project also assure the sustainable component from sustainability action. Kim Chang-beom to continue the cooperation with Seoul and Suwon showed more potential for cooperation in the future (47). At this point, the role of their city diplomacy in countering climate change from river restoration programs also gives a positive impact regionally, nationally, and globally.

Conclusion
The concern of climate change issues, specifically toward urban river management has been global agenda with the national and sub-national actors as the key player. The

Acknowledgments :
We acknowledge the support received from the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) through Korean Studies Grant 2021: Academic Research Project.