Spatial analysis of coral reefs and its degradation patterns in Bunaken National Park

Abstract

This article will analyze the spatial pattern as well as the degradation pattern of the coral reefs in the Bunaken National Park. Bunaken National Park is a marine national park located in the Province of North Sulawesi; the park was built as means of conservation as well as providing a region for tourism. The national park contains a different type of marine and land ecosystem, one of the many types of the ecosystem that are in the national park is coral reefs. Coral reefs in Bunaken National Park provides different kinds of function and benefits whether for the marine habitats that live around the ecosystem, as well as for the local people who live in the islands of the national park. Remote sensing could be used as a tool to identify the spatial pattern and the type of ecosystem that habits inside shallow sea water. The main issue with this method is that the research cannot be conduct directly to identify which type of ecosystem specifically (such as coral reefs, seagrass, etc.), as well as its condition. Therefore, data collecting is necessary to observe and identify the ecosystem and its condition specifically. This study uses satellite image from Landsat 8 OLI as the main secondary data to be processed. The satellite image will be processed by using an algorithm of shallow water analysis that was introduced by Lyzenga in 1981. Since data verification and data observation is needed for this study, the research observes the pattern of the different type of ecosystem and its condition that spreads around Bunaken National Park. The verification and observation process was done by GPS, there were 250 different samples from the data that were collected around the Bunaken National Park. The sample that was collected in the study area will be used to classify the satellite image that has been processed by shallow water algorithm, on which could identify: seagrass, bleached coral reefs, deceased coral reefs, and healthy coral reefs around the national park. The results of this study show the spatial pattern of the coral reefs is located usually around the islands in the Bunaken National Park. The results show that the coral reefs are mostly located around the islands in the National Park. The map results show that the healthy coral reefs are usually located in the outermost layer around the shallow water ecosystem. The bleached reefs are usually located in the middle section of the shallow water, between the healthy coral and the islands itself. Most of the reefs that died and bleached are in the southwest of Bunaken Island, and the northwest of Nain Island.