Land use analysis of coastal belt in the coastal area of Langkat Regency North Sumatra Province using Sentinel 2 Satellite imagery

Abstract

Population growth increases pressure on land resources and leads to the use of the land that contravenes to its allocation. The coastal area of Langkat Regency is an area with high levels of pressure on land. The aimed of this study was to evaluate the use of the coastal belt and river belt in six districts of Langkat Regency North Sumatra Province using Sentinel 2 Imagery. The results of the accuracy test of the land cover classification showed good results with the overall accuracy was 99.56%, and kappa accuracy was 99.18%. We found that land use in this area dominated by oil palm plantations which reached 33,400.31 hectares. Coastal belt with a distance of 0-100 meters dominated by mangrove vegetation with an area of 386 hectares or 38.14% of the total Coastal belt area. Fishponds dominated the land use on the river belt area at a distance of 0-50 meters with an area of 1,217 hectares or 64.73%. We found that land use that contravenes to its function on the coastal belt was mainly for oil palm, fish ponds, and rice fields. It is necessary to rehabilitate the land determined by the government as a forest area to maintain the area's protection function.