Assessment of post-tsunami disaster land use/land cover change and potential impact of future sea-level rise to low-lying coastal areas: A case study of Banda Aceh coast of Indonesia

The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of the projected sea-level rise to the coastal land use/land cover (LULC) at a disaster-prone coastal area, encompassing an engineering time-scale, based on a couple of sea-level rise scenarios. We investigate the Banda Aceh coast, a low-lying coastal area vulnerable to multiple hazards such as tsunamis and co-seismic land subsidence, which is typical along the Indonesian coastlines. Three sets of multi-temporal Google Earth Engine images acquired in 2004 (pre-tsunami December 2004), 2011 and 2017 were utilized to obtain the areal coverage of various types of LULC. The scenarios of coastal inundation were predetermined at elevation +1.0 m and +1.5 m projecting the sea-level rise in the next couple centuries. Aquaculture ponds, buildings and bare land are the top three most pre-dominant land covers in Banda Aceh coast. The finding of this study reveals that the aquaculture ponds are at the highest risk to the future sea-level rise, and potentially contribute to the unproductive seawater inundated area. The bare land which has a huge potential to be converted into settlement area (buildings, housing, etc.), experienced remarkable loss due to both future inundation scenarios. The coastal area of Banda Aceh in the next couple of centuries, thus, will be highly vulnerable to the projected sea-level rise, providing the fast-growing and ever-expanding built environment very close to the coastline. A sustainable coastal management taking into account the disaster risk should, therefore, be incorporated within the decision making for the protection of the coastal area.