Post-tsunami land use monitoring to support sustainable coastal management

Abstract

Monitoring land use in tsunami-prone coastal areas has an important role in disaster risk reduction. This study was conducted to map temporal land-use patterns in the post-2004 tsunami coastal area in Aceh. The research method was carried out through a spatial approach by overlaying land use maps for the years 2005, 2009, 2014, and 2019 to find out patterns and changes in land use. Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 image analysis was carried out through supervised classification (maximum likelihood). Based on the land-use pattern analysis, the results showed that tsunami-prone coastal areas were still widely used as residential areas. This study shows that over the past 15 years, there has been an increase in the number of settlements covering an area of 7 418.99 ha, and there has been a decrease in open land covering an area of 6743.73 ha. While land use in the form of high-density vegetation experienced an increase of 672.76 ha, likewise, low-density vegetation increased by 459.11 ha after the tsunami. The growth of settlements in a tsunami-prone area might be highly risky if a similar disaster occurs again. Efforts to regulate, monitor, control, and evaluate land use appropriately in tsunami-prone areas are necessary so that the level of disaster risk can be reduced.