Environment & Crisis — Volcanoes, Overtourism, Water, Rice Paddies

Bali holds a paradise image and a serious environmental crisis in the same hand. Mount Agung erupted in 1963 (~1,500 deaths) and again in 2017–2019; during the rainy season, Kuta Beach is buried in plastic waste. Through the 2010s, rice paddies in Canggu and Ubud have been converted to villas at hundreds of hectares per year; water shortages have pushed well depths from 30 m a decade ago to over 100 m now.

This Part looks at Bali's crises through the lens of local environmental groups, research, and statistics.

Chapters in this Part

• 7.1 Volcanoes — Gunung Agung (1963, 2017–2019), Gunung Batur (active), connections with neighboring Rinjani (Lombok), the effect of volcanic ash on Balinese agriculture
• 7.2 Natural Disasters — Earthquakes and tsunamis (the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Bali), the wet season (November–March) and flooding, wind and lightning
• 7.3 Environmental Crisis — Absence of waste-management infrastructure, plastic and beach pollution (Suwung landfill), river and sea contamination, the Bali Bersih (Clean Bali) initiative
• 7.4 Overtourism — Transformation of Canggu, Uluwatu, and Ubud (a decade ago vs. now), traffic congestion, displacement of locals, formation of the Bule Belt (foreign-resident corridor)
• 7.5 Water and Rice Paddies — How the Subak water distribution system is being severed by villa pools and hotel golf courses, the decline of rice paddies (from ~80,000 ha in 1980 to ~50,000 ha in 2024 estimates)

Crisis structure foreigners should know

Many foreign residents in Bali don't realize what environmental costs underlie the villa they stay in. For example:

• One pool in your villa = one year of water for 0.5 ha of rice paddies
• The land your villa sits on = a paddy that was once a node in the Subak water network
• The 1.5 L PET bottle you drink each day = part of the 1.2 billion bottles discarded across Bali every year

The articles in this Part are tools for understanding the structure, not for blame. Once you see how you are part of this crisis, you also see how to reduce that part.