Research Proposal
Risty Khoirunisa
Proposed Title
Geographical Problems Caused by Land Coverage Changes Due to Urbanization (Case
Study: Semarang City, Indonesia)
Introduction
In the last decades, the increasing number of populations in urban areas is dramatically
increased. This problem happened because of rapid urbanization. According to the to the
2018 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects (UN, 2019) more people live in urban
areas, around 55 percent of the world’s population in 2018 and are projected into two
thirds of global population in 2050. As the world continues to growth, urban growth is
becoming essential for succession of sustainable development and policy making.
In those recent years, world also have encountered quick and uncommon urban
development due to industrial revolution and worldwide economy (Tajbakhsh, et al. 2016),
Indonesia, as a developing country also undergo this urban process. Indonesia as one of
developing countries is expected to experience rapid urbanization in the coming decades,
from 41 percent in 2018 to 59 percent in 2050 for the proportion of the urban population
(UN, 2019). Therefore, the study of urban growth is becoming a trend since understanding
how urban areas are changing inside the landscape becomes increasingly important (Hadi,
et al. 2016). Urban areas are often the strongest indicators of human interaction with the
environment and the detected information from remote sensing and GIS approach takes
into account for policy making (Mosammam, et al. 2017). The analysis of urban growth
also can help in understanding the potential impacts on a region’s water resource, economy
and people’s behaviour (Novin and Khosravi, 2016).
Urban growth is an inevitable phenomenon, which depends on a number of factors, both at
the internal and external that are considered (Adeel, 2010). While urban growth is
considered normal, urban sprawl is often used today in negative way, as low density and
inefficient development around the cities. Many of the definitions found in the literature
tend to emphasise urban sprawl as a pattern of urbanisation, rather than a process of urban
change itself. The urban growth also impacted to the increase of temperature in urban areas
that created a phenomenon called Urban Heat Island. Urban growth also contributed to the
less green areas in the city as researched using scenario for future climate, namely RCP 4.5
and RCP 8.5, in Gal, et al (2021).
The climate change also affected urban environment’s temperature which increased during
the recent years and created Urban Heat Island (UHI). This phenomenon has some
relationship with urban growth and land transformation due to population expansion. The
rate of urbanization that are growing exponentially contributes to the increase of land
surface temperature. The rapid urbanization is a big stress for urban environment.
Therefore, the study about urban growth and the generated problem because of
urbanisation is becoming important for human comfort and urban environment to avoid
further damage from those problem that happened because of urbanization. The research
will be employed with the help of advanced technology such as remote sensing and GIS
technique to obtain better understanding of these current issues in urban areas. The
expected result could be a data foundation for creating better planning in urban cities in
order to help Indonesia’s government creates a better policy and decision making to
prevent further damage that resulted from this phenomenon in the future.
Research Question
To achieve the research objective, there are four basic research questions that need to be
addressed:
•
•
•
•
•
How much the urban growth and land transformation over time in Semarang City
of Indonesia in 10 to 20 years?
What is the geographical problem that could be happened due to urbanization and
how to prevent those?
How big is the role of urban growth contributed to those problem?
How is the relationship between urban growth and land transformation?
What is the significance of urban growth in the increase of urban’s surface
temperature?
Proposed Methodology
Study Area
Semarang is the capital of Central Java province, located in the northern coast of Java
island, Indonesia. It is located at the -6o58' (latitude) and +110o25' (longitude), and covers
an area of about 373.7 km2.
Semarang city is the 8th populated city in Indonesia with almost 2.000.000 people in this
city now. The number of people in Semarang has doubled in 20 years (Wilonoyudho,
2010). The size of population in Semarang Metropolitan Area is being projected to
2,100,000 inhabitants in 2030 (CBS, 2010 in Handayani and Rudiarto, 2014). The rapid
expansion of urban population leads to a need to accommodate required land demand for
such urban activities. This resulted to numerous infrastructure developments and land use
transformation that become critical for urban environment.
The massive development of infrastructure and settlement is becoming a concern since
urban green space is being transformed to settlement area and increasing the surface
temperature in urban’s land. This could create more disaster such as urban flooding,
increased the rate of land subsidence and Urban Heat Island. These all the reason
Semarang is chosen as study area.
Data
The data are obtained from several sources such as:
1. Multispectral imageries such as Sentinel 2 or Landsat for time series analysis of
land use/cover change
2. Thermal band from satellite imageries such as Landsat or Sentinel
3. VIIRS/NOAA night time data series to border urban sprawl process
4. Secondary data such as population density data and/or ground meteorological data,
gathered from Government of Semarang and Center of Statistical Agency.
5. DTM or 3D Dataset for better classification of Land Use Land Cover Change.
6. Ground truth reference data for validation
Methodology
Data processing include pre-processing of satellite imageries such as geometric correction,
radiometric correction and atmospheric correction. Then, a built-up area analysis required
to be done in time series. The analysis will be employed by using Normalized Difference
Built-up Index (NDBI) in Landsat (Hadi, et al. 2016; Handayani and Rudiarto, 2014).
Two different temporal resolution of satellite imageries needs to be classified using a few
methods that available such as supervised classification or maximum likelihood
classification to detect the change of land use within the time series. This result will be
validated by using a ground truth check or a reference data. Segmentation method will be
used using Google Earth Engine or other platforms that accommodate the research.
Further process to obtain the information on surface temperature is needed to understand
urban heat island and its correlation with urban growth. The process will be employed by
using thermal band or hotspots (Unger, et al., 2010). Those data will be interpolated using
some interpolation methods such as IDW or Kriging to understand the surface
temperature’s distribution in the city.
From the result of processing images, the correlation and relationship between those
factors in Semarang’s urban growth can be investigated using some statistical calculation.
The population density dataset over times could be a support to the hypothesis. The ground
truth reference data could be obtained from the government’s institution in Indonesia and it
will be applied for kappa coefficient calculation as accuracy assessment tools in this
research (Lal, et al. 2017).
The population density will also part of validation data for confirmation of urban growth
analysis to
find the correlation between the population number and the land
transformation.
Timetable
No
Activities
2022/2023
2023/2024
2024/2025
2025/2026
Sem 1 Sem 2 Sem 1 Sem 2 Sem 1 Sem 2 Sem 1 Sem 2
1 Literature Review
2 Research Proposal
3 Data Acquisition
4 Data Feasibility
5 Writing: Introduction
6 Writing: Literature Review
7 Publication
8 Data Processing
9 Writing: Methodology
10 Data Analysis
11 Accuracy Assessment
12 Writing: Result and Discussion
13 P.hD Thesis Finalization
14 International Journal for P.hD Thesis
15 Submission of P.hD Thesis
Reference
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