Influence of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Recovery Process on Land Use and Land Cover in Banda Aceh, Indonesia

Abstract

Unchecked development and land occupation tend to occur during disaster recovery efforts, leading to land degradation. To investigate the influence of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami recovery process on land use and land cover (LULC) in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, a time-series of LULC changes was analyzed using Google Earth images from 2004 to 2013. During the first post-disaster recovery period (2004–2009), inland bare land and green spaces changed to built-up land because temporary shelters had been built in safer areas farther from the coast. Conversely, in coastal areas, the change from bare land to built-up land was greater during the second period (2009–2013) than the first period, possibly because evacuees had returned and rebuilt their houses. The increase in patch density in 2009 might have resulted from the evacuation and construction of temporary shelters in the inland area, forming an urban sprawl-like pattern. The Shannon Diversity Index of the inland area was smaller than that of the coastal area in all monitored years, although it decreased over time in both areas; this indicated that the coastal area was more homogeneous than the inland area, but the homogeneity increased over time in both areas. We observed LULC changes not only in the area affected directly by the tsunami, but also in the evacuation area. Although recovery efforts typically focus on LULC changes in areas directly affected by disasters, they should also consider evacuation areas.