30 years trend of peatland utilization in Riau Province

Abstract

The peatland was a type of wetland ecosystem that was easily damaged. Damage to peatlands is generally caused by various types of unmanaged land use. The linear increase in the number and needs of the population has triggered the conversion of peatlands every year. This study reveals facts in an exploratory descriptive manner on the trend of peatland use in Riau Province from 1990-2020. The determination of the type of land use is based on changes in the condition of the peatland cover derived from Landsat images in 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. The analysis was carried out with a spatial approach with overlay techniques using geographic information system applications. The results of the analysis found that the area of forest cover on peatlands in Riau Province has experienced a very large decrease from 71.71% to 35.93%. The rate of decline in forest cover area to non-forest is around 59,311.65 ha/year. The use of peatlands for cultivation activities continued to increase over the previous 30 years, from 28.29% to 64.07%. The largest utilization came from plantation activities by 44.48%. This value is very large compared to other activities such as dry land agriculture, rice fields, open land, settlements, infrastructure, mining, swamps, scrub bushes, and transmigration. This shows that plantation activities have dominated the use of peatlands, even faster than other types of land cover. Plantation activities in Riau province are dominated by oil palm, both company plantations and smallholder plantations. The increase in the area of oil palm plantations was triggered by an increase in demand and a very high economic profit value compared to other types of agricultural commodities. So that the ability to manage plantations on sustainable peatlands is very important.