Malamg Regency is one of the urban areas in Indonesia that has experienced rapid urban development. The urban area was selected based on the drastic changes due to the influence of urbanization and population growth, which have a significant impact on the environmental, economic, and social conditions of the urban setting. The high level of urbanization and the process of becoming a city, particularly in the urban fringe areas, have had a profound impact on land use changes.
The method of processing Landsat image data in ArcGIS uses the supervised classification method. This method classifies the images based on spectral recognition obtained from sample pixels (polygons that represent sample areas for each type of different land cover). These samples are collected manually, and image analysis is used to calculate the classification of the images.
It can be seen in the table above that land cover in 2015 is divided into 5 classes: forest, settlements, water bodies, agriculture, and rice fields. Of the total area of 376974,73 Ha, the forest area is 109,311.24 Ha, which is 31.55%. The settlement area is 36,551.58 Ha with a percentage of 10.55%. The water bodies cover an area of 89,174.35 Ha, or 25%. The agricultural area is 96,009.6 Ha, which accounts for 27.71%. The rice field area is 15,407.87 Ha, representing 4.45%. In the land change table for the year 2024, the forest area is recorded at 55,588.90 Ha, which is 16.05%. Water areas covering an area of 126,496.40 Ha with 36.51%. Agricultural areas covering an area of 73,212.29 with a percentage of 21.13%. From these two results, it is stated that there has been a significant reduction in land cover in forests by 5.5% and an increase in land cover in settlements by 13.4%. Water areas experienced a slight increase in land cover by 0.77%. Agricultural land saw a reduction in land cover by 6.58%. And rice fields experienced a significant increase in land cover of 17.91%.