Cyclone Senyar hit South and Southeast Asian countries in late November. In Indonesia, the island of Sumatra, especially its northern parts, took the worst hit.
The storm set off flash floods and landslides that tore through towns, killed hundreds of people and pushed thousands of families out of their homes. Many houses were submerged to their rooftops or swept away entirely, while rivers turned into sudden, violent torrents.
But this wasn’t just a natural disaster brought on by intense rain. Weather was only part of the story. The real damage occured when extreme rainfall collided with an already weakened ecosystem.
The result was a deadly catastrophe.
When forests are cleared and the land is degraded, the ecosystem loses its natural ability to act as a “sponge.” Rainwater that once slowly seeped into the forest floor now rushes over the land, turning into torrential runoff that crashes into people’s homes.
This is why the recent floods in Sumatra must be understood not only as a hydrometeorological phenomenon, but as a sign of ecosystem collapse: the soil–forest–water cycle is degrading, exacerbated by decades of deforestation and land-use change.
Healthy soil: a silent water absorber
Healthy soil works like a sponge. It is rich in organic matter and full of pores and channels created by roots and soil organisms. Well-maintained soil can absorb remarkably large volumes of water.
A forest is not only a collection of trees. It is a hydrological system whose functions extend from underground to the atmosphere. Plant roots create pathways for water to seep into the soil, the canopy slows the fall of rain, and leaf litter protects the surface from erosion. Trees absorb water from the soil and release it through transpiration, helping regulate humidity and rainfall patterns.
When forests are cleared for plantations, mining, or agricultural expansion, the soil’s capacity to absorb water collapses. The roots that once bound the soil decay. The soil loses its protection. Leaf litter disappears. Organic matter declines, the soil becomes compacted, eroded, and damaged.
As a result, the landscape loses its ability to absorb water, runoff increases, and slopes in hilly and mountainous regions become unstable. Meanwhile, rivers receive large amounts of water in a short time. When they cannot contain it, they overflow, triggering deadly floods.
The case of Sumatra
In North Sumatra, the Batang Toru, a major river in the Tapanuli Selatan highlands, flows through one of the most biodiverse mountain ranges.
Its watershed provides water for irrigation, household use, fisheries, and micro-hydropower.
The surrounding tropical rainforest is the last primary forest block in this region, serving as home for a huge biodoversity and acting as a natural buffer against floods and landslides.
But this resilience is rapidly disappearing. The northern zone of Batang Toru, at 300–400 metres elevation, has been opened up for mining since 2010. Forest clearing for oil palm plantations continued until 2024.
Our latest satellite analysis shows that approximately 1,550 hectares of the forests in the area have lost their vegetation cover, leaving bare soil highly susceptible to erosion in the Batang Toru watershed.
Degraded slopes like these can no longer absorb rainfall or stabilise the watershed. Communities downstream become increasingly vulnerable when extreme storms hit.
Google Earth imagery shows deforestation and forest degradation around Batang Toru, North Sumatra. Image: Dian Fiantis, Budiman Minasny, Frisa Irawan Ginting/The Conversation
In West Sumatra, a week earlier, relentless rainfall soaked Padang City. Rainfall intensity rose sharply: daily totals increased from 37 millimetres (mm) on 19 November to 145mm on 27 November 2025, with total accumulation exceeding 770mm. The soil finally gave way, unable to hold any more water in its pore network.
An estimated 152 hectares of forest have been lost in the upstream areas of the Batang Kuranji and Batang Aie Dingin rivers in Padang City. As a result, the entire water cycle has been disrupted. Groundwater recharge declined, surface runoff increased and rivers turned “ferocious,” with surging discharge volumes that triggered flooding.
When rain falls, the water is clear. But during floods, it turns brownish-yellow or even black — a sign that eroded soil has been carried away by the flow.
Four days after the flash floods, the Batang Kuranji (19.68 km) and Batang Aie Dingin (14.27 km) rivers in Padang remained brownish-yellow, flowing rapidly towards Padang Beach.
Communities suffer the consequences, while coastal ecosystems become increasingly choked by sediment.
The four rivers in Padang originate in the Bukit Barisan Mountains, where their exposed soil surfaces easily wash away during heavy rain.
Sentinel-2 imagery captures the river flow causing flash floods in the city of Padang, West Sumatra. Image: Dian Fiantis, Budiman Minasny, Frisa Irawan Ginting/ The Conversation
Ecosystem-based disaster adaptation
We often see deforestation and soil degradation as local issues. But the scale of the impacts shows that these problems carry national consequences.
As extreme rainfall becomes more frequent, every damaged watershed becomes a risk multiplier.
In areas with healthy soils and intact forests, storms can still cause damage, but the ecosystem absorbs part of the impact. In critically degraded areas, the same storm can escalate into a major disaster.
Taking the lesson from Sumatra, this shows that a climate resilience strategy cannot rely solely on levees, dams, or emergency responses. We must rebuild the ecological infrastructure that regulates water flow.
Maintaining the soil–forest–water relationship is essential for our safety — now and in the future.
Thus, we must protect remaining forests, especially headwater catchments and peatlands; restore degraded soils by increasing organic matter, expanding agroforestry, and promoting sustainable farming practices; and include soil-health and land-cover indicators in flood-risk planning.
Ecosystem-based adaptation, from reforestation to planting vegetation along riverbanks, must go hand in hand with engineered solutions.
If we only react to disasters without restoring the ecological buffers that prevent them, future floods will be even bigger and more deadly.
Extreme weather will always come. But we can reduce the impacts by restoring forests and improving the condition of the soils beneath our feet so that the next storm does not have to become the next tragedy.
Dian Fiantis is Professor of Soil Science in the Department of Soil, Faculty of Agriculture at Andalas University, Padang. Budiman Minasny is a professor in soil-landscape modelling and was a Future Fellow of the Australian Research Council. Frisa Irawan Ginting is a lecturer in the Department of Soil, Faculty of Agriculture at Andalas University, Padang.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
