Remote sensing and GIS application for water environment suitability evaluation in Lampung and Hurun Bay

Water environment suitability evaluation is a prominent requirement to determine the success rate of sustainable aquaculture business in coastal waters. This study aims to evaluate the site of floating net cages which already exist in Lampung Bay using water environment site suitability maps and interview data. Physical water suitability for floating net cage cultivation maps are generated using spatial modelling of some parameters, such as depth, sea surface temperature, water clarity, suspended solids, salinity, chlorophyll-α, and pH.There are 32 samples taken in the field for each parameter, both in Lampung Bay and in Hurun Bay using systematic grid sampling. Landsat 8 OLI imagery is used to obtain sea surface temperature, chlorophyll-α, and suspended solid data. Meanwhile, other parameters are collected in the field and mapped using kriging interpolation. Questionnaires were conducted to obtain water suitability characteristics information for floating net cages. All data are combined by using weighted overlay in a GIS environment, identified the characteristics of water environment quality on both sites. The result shows that the development of floating net cages around Hurun Bay has good suitability class whereas Lampung Bay does not meet the suitable class criteria of depth, surface temperature, and clarity parameters. Disparity on land use conditions and the understanding of floating net cage cultivation among the farmers on both sites are the factors that make those different level of suitability classes. The RS and GIS approach used in this study are able to overcome the challenges present in determining the cost and time effective sampling in the water environment. Thus, this study provides a robust and rapid method of potential environment assessment for floating net cages that is prominently needed by stakeholders and farmers.