A Geomorphological Evaluation of Sea Turtles Nesting in the Southern Sea of West Java

Abstract

Sea turtles are reptile that classified to the ‘red list’ at IUCN and Appendix I CITES. It means that their existence in nature has been threatened by a human, predator, and climate changes, so it should be conserved. Among various species of sea turtles, most of them laid their eggs in the coastal area of Indonesia, likely in Java Island. Under these conditions, this research is going to evaluate the condition of coastal areas where turtles laid their eggs in some part of the southern sea of Java Island based on geomorphological approach. Batu Hiu and Pangumbahan coastal area, West Java took for sampling area. The characteristics of geomorphology that affect turtle nesting habitats including its morphology, sand material, and coastal processes. Those aspects divide into the beach slope, beach wide, beach length, grain-size, wind parameters, waves parameters, and vegetation as an additional aspect. Based on those measurements, the coastal geomorphology characteristic on two sampling sites used as a standard evaluation for sea turtles nesting. Identification on beaches along the southern sea of west Java found that there are nine potential locations with the same characteristic with Batu Hiu and Pangumbahan coastal area as turtle nesting habitats.