Land cover change analysis of buffer areas in New Capital City of Nusantara, Indonesia: A cellular automata approach on satellite imageries data

Abstract

The proposed plan to move Indonesia's capital city to the New Capital City of Nusantara in East Kalimantan Province undoubtedly requires careful efforts to ensure food supply for the population. Population migration to the new capital may pose a food security challenge. To address this fundamental issue, one of the most crucial approaches is to establish buffer areas that can support the food needs of the new capital. The currently existing official Area Sampling Frame survey conducted by the government to assess food vulnerability faced several limitations, including weather conditions, field terrain variations, and high cost. In this study, we propose the utilization of remote sensing satellite imagery data in buffer areas to analyze changes and predict future land cover, which can provide valuable data for assessing food availability. We investigate the integration of a Cellular Automata method with the two most popular analytical methods of classical Logistic Regression and data-driven Artificial Neural Networks, known as CA-LR and CA-ANN, to identify and map land cover changes in the new capital buffer zones. Our findings reveal that both combined methods, CA-LR and CA-ANN, yield fairly promising results, with correctness and kappa statistic values exceeding 80%. Prediction results indicate that buffer areas are predominantly covered by trees, while built-up areas are still limited. The flooded vegetation cover, including rice fields, is predicted to decrease by 2024. This should be a matter of concern for stakeholders, considering the construction of the new capital city is still ongoing and the number of migrants is expected to keep rising.