The Book Chapter: Designing Low Carbon Societies in Landscape The Relationship between land use land cover and land degradation of natural protected area in Batang Merao Watershed, Indonesia

Abstract

Land degradation in Batang Merao is regarded as one of the major environmental problems that can affect the sustainability of this natural protected area in Kerinci Seblat National Park. The aim of this study was to determine the linkages between land use land cover (LULC) changes and land degradation using multi temporal Landsat data from 1990, 2000 and 2010. The Comparison of Normalized Vegetaton Vegetation Index (NDVI) images showed that the study area had undergone a series of vegetation changes. Based on a maximum likelihood algorithm of the supervised classification method, images were classified into six classes: forest, mix plantation, tea plantation, shrub/bush, agricultural land, and settlement. The results showed that during the last two decades, two major changes took place. Forest decreased at rates of 330.85 ha.y -1 (period of 1990-2000) and 145.25 ha.y -1 (period of 2000-2010); on the other hand, agricultural land, mix plantation, and settlement have shown increments. Concerning land degradation, Batang Merao Watershed exhibited potential soil degradation where the mean annual potential land degradation was 128.03 ton.ha -1