Study of Debris Movement in South and West Coast of Sumatra and Java and Its Impact on Bali Strait During Western Monsoon

Abstract

Bali Strait is one of the most unique and important water areas, especially for the coastal communities of Banyuwangi and Jembrana up to Badung Regency. The Bali Strait has Sardinella lemuru fish resources where it is widely exploited and is the main livelihood income of the coastal communities. In recent years, the quality of Sardinella lemuru fish has begun to decline due to contamination of microscopic plastic debris in the Bali Strait during western monsoon. Many previous researches have carried out the movement of debris in the Bali Strait using numerical model to find out the source and location of the marine debris, however it only carried out local simulations within the Bali Strait. This study aims to determine the movement of debris that reaches the Bali Strait assuming debris originates from coastal areas on south and west coast of Sumatra and Java during the western monsoon (December 2018 - February 2019). The Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM) model is used to obtain circulation of current patterns and debris particles movement patterns using the Lagrangian Particle Tracking module. The verification result of the model current pattern and field data using the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) equation. In the u velocity component the RMSE value is 0.014 m/s with a correlation of 0.968 and the v velocity component is 0.011 m/s with a correlation of 0.945. In general, the current pattern in the waters of southern of Sumatra Island to Java Island in the dominant western monsoon moves eastward due to the influence of western monsoon. The simulation results show particles that reached the Bali Strait as much as 3.47% originating only from the coastal waters of East Java.