Application of remote sensing for land resources management in Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia is an archipelago country consists of about 13,800 islands with 5 big islands i.e. Sumatra (516,000 square km), Java & Madura (128,000 square km), Kalimantan (541,000 square km), Sulawesi (189,000 square km) and Irian Jaya (422,000 square km) and the total territory of 9,8 million square km (1.9 million square km land, 5.2 million square km ocean and 2.7 million square km exclusive economic zone). The 1.9 million square km land consists of 57,903,208 hectare forest, 2,481,337 hectare traditional farming, 7,059, 012 hectare rice field, 6,379,012 hectare swampy areas, 81,272,200 hectare empty land, 8,507,676 hectare critical land and others (the 1981 census). These numerical values can be changed any time, for example, last year happened a big fire forest in Kalimatan and the result was more than 3,000,000 hectares of forest were burnt out. Moreover, the area of forest is decreasing due to logging activities. The population of Indonesia is about 150 million and almost 67% live in Java & Madura and Bali. The government has to transmigrate the people fo Sumatra, Kalimantan, Irian Jaya and other islands and has to prepare the new settlement. It has impacts on empty land, rice field, farming and ecology systems. The government needs to consider carefully the management as to how land resources can be benefitted and how land must be protected from abuse and environmental degradation. Due to these problems it is very reasonable for Indonesia to use remote sensing technology for inventorying the wide area.