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Peraturan Menteri Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral 31/2018Regulation
Full titlePeraturan Menteri Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral Nomor 31 Tahun 2018 tentang Pedoman Penetapan Zona Konservasi Air Tanah
CitationPermen ESDM 31/2018; BN 2018 No. 733
JurisdictionIndonesia
Enacted byMinister of Energy and Mineral Resources
Signed30 May 2018
Promulgated4 June 2018
Effective4 June 2018

Peraturan Menteri Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral 31/2018 is an Indonesian ministerial regulation issued by the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources setting the guideline for designating groundwater conservation zones. Its full title is Pedoman Penetapan Zona Konservasi Air Tanah (guidelines for the designation of groundwater conservation zones). It was signed on 30 May 2018 and promulgated and in force on 4 June 2018.[1][2]

The regulation was made to implement the division of government affairs in the geology sub-field of the energy and mineral resources sector in the annex to the 2014 regional government law.[3] It builds on the national list of groundwater basins in Peraturan Menteri Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral 2/2017: conservation zones are drawn within basins already designated by the minister.[4] Its ten articles allocate the power to designate zones between the minister and provincial governors, set a two-year deadline for designation and a five-year cycle for updating, and incorporate an annex that sets the technical method, including the thresholds by which groundwater is classed as safe, vulnerable, critical or damaged.

Those classes became the basis of later groundwater licensing. Both Peraturan Menteri Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral 14/2024 and Peraturan Menteri Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral 4/2026 issue permits and approvals according to the condition recorded in the conservation zone, using the same zone classes.[5] The subject as a whole is treated at groundwater regulation in Indonesia. CRPG's regulatory tracker analysed the regulation in November 2025.[6]

Definitions

A groundwater conservation zone (Zona Konservasi Air Tanah) is a zone or area determined on the basis of similar groundwater carrying capacity, similar levels of groundwater damage, and similar management. It is of two kinds: a protection zone (Zona Perlindungan Air Tanah), an area whose function for groundwater is so important that it is protected, and a utilisation zone (Zona Pemanfaatan Air Tanah), an area whose groundwater may be used, like a cultivation area.[7] The regulation also defines the confined and unconfined aquifer, the groundwater basin, recharge and discharge areas, groundwater conservation, groundwater condition and quality, and the piezometric and phreatic surfaces used to measure water level decline.[7:1]

Designation and updating

The head of the Geological Agency proposes zones to the minister, who designates them for groundwater basins that cross provincial or national boundaries. For basins within one province, the provincial agency responsible for groundwater proposes zones to the governor after evaluation by the Geological Agency; the governor designates them, reports them to the minister, and must follow the guideline.[8] Designation was due within two years of promulgation.[9]

The Geological Agency and provincial agencies may work with other government research bodies, university research institutes and businesses with competence in groundwater. Such partners must keep and secure the resulting data and hand all of it over; where a provincial agency is the partner, the data are reported to the head of the Geological Agency, and the data are the property of the state.[10] The same arrangement applies when zones are updated.[11]

Designated zones must be updated no later than five years after designation, on the basis of an evaluation of monitoring data, by the minister or the governor according to their competence.[12] The procedure for preparing and updating zones is set in the annex, which is an integral part of the regulation.[13]

Technical method

The annex requires zones to be prepared from primary data, gathered by measurement and field investigation, and secondary data from other agencies, and then delineated through evaluation and analysis. The protection zone covers recharge areas, which may be identified by the break of slope, the drainage pattern, the line of spring emergence, the position of the water table and other methods, and a spring protection zone drawn with a radius of 200 metres around each spring, within which drilling and excavation are to be prohibited.[14]

Damage to groundwater condition is graded in four levels. Measured by decline of the water level, the grade is safe below 40 per cent, vulnerable from 40 to 60 per cent, critical above 60 up to 80 per cent, and damaged above 80 per cent, for both unconfined and confined aquifers. Measured by quality, the grades rise with total dissolved solids and electrical conductivity: vulnerable from 1,000 to 10,000 milligrams per litre, critical above 10,000 up to 100,000, and damaged above 100,000 or where the water is polluted by heavy metals or hazardous and toxic substances. These quality criteria do not apply where groundwater is naturally brackish or saline. The groundwater environment is graded safe or damaged according to whether abstraction has caused land subsidence.[15]

In aquifer systems in safe condition, the annex reserves unconfined aquifers, generally shallower than 40 metres, for drinking water, household use and smallholder farming through dug or driven wells, with other uses directed to confined aquifers, generally deeper than 40 metres.[16] The result is published as a zone map at a scale of 1:100,000 or larger, on which the damaged, critical, vulnerable and safe utilisation zones are drawn in dark red, pink, yellow and blue, and the protection zone in green. The legend of each utilisation zone must at least state the permitted depth of abstraction, the permitted use, and the permitted discharge.[17] The update procedure relies on continuous monitoring of water levels, abstraction and quality.[18]

See also

Part of a series on Groundwater regulation in Indonesia
Permen ESDM 14/2024 · Permen ESDM 2/2017 · Permen ESDM 31/2018 · Permen ESDM 4/2026 · Permen ESDM 5/2024 · Permen ESDM 7/2026 · Permen PU 11/2014 · UU 6/2023
Identifiers Know ID K204 · Work URI /akn/id/act/permen-esdm/2018/31 · RegVault PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018
Categories Ministerial regulations of Indonesia · Water law of Indonesia
What links here (6)

References

  1. [P] Peraturan Menteri Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral Nomor 31 Tahun 2018 tentang Pedoman Penetapan Zona Konservasi Air Tanah, Pasal 10 and closing formula (Ditetapkan di Jakarta pada tanggal 30 Mei 2018; Diundangkan di Jakarta pada tanggal 4 Juni 2018; Berita Negara 2018 Nomor 733). regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎

  2. [P] Permen ESDM No. 31 Tahun 2018, JDIH BPK. https://peraturan.bpk.go.id/Details/142920/permen-esdm-no-31-tahun-2018 ↩︎

  3. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, consideration (implementing Lampiran CC, Sub Urusan Geologi, of Undang-Undang Nomor 23 Tahun 2014 tentang Pemerintahan Daerah as last amended by Undang-Undang Nomor 9 Tahun 2015). regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎

  4. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, Pasal 2, and Mengingat item citing Peraturan Menteri ESDM Nomor 2 Tahun 2017 tentang Cekungan Air Tanah di Indonesia. regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎

  5. [P] Permen ESDM 4/2026, Pasal 1 angka 4 and Pasal 3 ayat (1)–(2). regulation_id PERMENESDM_4_2026. Permen ESDM 14/2024, Pasal 3. https://jdih.esdm.go.id/dokumen/download?id=2024pmesdm14.pdf ↩︎

  6. [E] "What Groundwater Conservation Zone Requirements Apply Under PERMENESDM 31/2018?", CRPG regulatory tracker, crpg.id, 26 November 2025. https://crpg.id/what-groundwater-conservation-zone-requirements-apply-under-permenesdm-31-2018/ (free sign-in required on crpg.id) The post carries a notice that it is AI-generated; it is cited for the record of the development, not for its legal content. ↩︎

  7. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, Pasal 1. regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎ ↩︎

  8. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, Pasal 4 and Pasal 5. regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎

  9. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, Pasal 9. regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎

  10. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, Pasal 3. regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎

  11. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, Pasal 8. regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎

  12. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, Pasal 6. regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎

  13. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, Pasal 7. regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎

  14. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, Lampiran, Bab II huruf A (data) and huruf B angka 1 (delineation of the protection zone, zona perlindungan mata air with a radius of 200 metres). regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎

  15. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, Lampiran, Bab II huruf B, Evaluasi Kondisi dan Lingkungan Air Tanah (levels by decline of the phreatic and piezometric surface; by TDS and DHL; by land subsidence; the matrix of damage to groundwater condition). The held text is OCR'd and some table cells are garbled; the figures given are those legible in the running text. regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎

  16. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, Lampiran, Bab II huruf B, Evaluasi Kedalaman Sumur Produksi dan Akuifer yang Akan Disadap. regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎

  17. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, Lampiran, Bab II huruf C (Penyusunan Peta Zona Konservasi Air Tanah). regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎

  18. [P] Permen ESDM 31/2018, Lampiran, Bab III (Tata Cara Pembaruan Zona Konservasi Air Tanah). regulation_id PERMEN_ESDM_31_2018. ↩︎