Mapping pre and post earthquake land cover change in Melangkap, Kota Belud Sabah using multi-temporal satellite Landsat 8/OLI and Sentinel 2 Imagery

Abstract

Earthquakes in mountainous belt can trigger major disturbance to the landscape impound a large amount of debris exported largely to the streams and forming landslide. During the 5th of June 2015, an earthquake of 5.9 Richter scale hit the heart of Mount Kinabalu, Sabah. The tremors caused the surrounding area to be affected largely to the population that is located near the river stream site. This study maps the land cover in Kota Belud following the earthquake that occurred in 2015 using Landsat 8 Operational Land Imagery (year 2014) and Sentinel-2 Multispectral Imagery data (2020). It was reported as one of the locations that severely impacted by the earthquake. Maximum likelihood algorithm was used to generate the map of land cover change of Kota Belud year 2014 and year 2020. Nine (9) classes of land cover were identified in the study area consisting of primary forest, secondary forest, shrubland, paddy, rubber plantation, bare rock, bare soil, built up, and river. The result obtained shows the most affected area is the river area, Sungai Panataran, that flow through Melangkap from Mount Kinabalu. Other land cover type also shows changes but mostly due to deforestation and agricultural activities. In conclusion, mapping the Kota Belud area using remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS) is useful for monitoring the landscape change of the site due to the vulnerability to natural disaster such as flood and earthquake.