Variation of groundwater level due to land use, precipitation, and earthquake in Yogyakarta City from 2005 to 2020

Yogyakarta City not only experiences rapid land use conversion and precipitation decline but also experiences frequent earthquake events. These factors can have a significant impact on groundwater variation dynamics in this city. Therefore, the aim of this research is to analyze the factors that can influence groundwater oscillation based on precipitation, land use, earthquake, and river discharge changes. The method used to analyze spatio-temporal groundwater level and precipitation are by applying space-time Bayesian statistics since Bayesian has lower root mean square error compared to the space-time variogram and inverse distance methods. Land use is classified with false color composite for Landsat ETM and infrared color composite for Landsat 8 since these color composites well classify built-up and non-built-up areas. River discharge is analyzed as a primary indication of earthquake event impact on groundwater level variation. There is no significant variation of groundwater level from 2005 to 2020. Groundwater fluctuation is classified as stable since the magnitude of change is approximately less than 1.5 m from dry to wet period. It is also probably because there is abundances of groundwater resources in Yogyakarta City that shallow aquifer have very high hydraulic conductivity. The conversion speed from non-built-up area into built-up area is 26 from 2005 to 2015, while 8 from 2015 to 2020. At least 78 of Yogyakarta City is built-up areas in 2020. Abrupt changes in groundwater level is due to: a) declining trends of precipitation on May 2009 to July 2016 with average accumulative monthly residual rainfall ranging from 500 mm month−1 to 1300 mm month−1, and b) high magnitude earthquake occurrences on May 2006, November 2010 and 2015 when groundwater patterns and levels including discharge rivers showed distinct behavior. This study shows that precipitation and earthquake are the major contribution to groundwater level variation compared to land use. © 2024 Elsevier B.V.