Coastal Vegetation Belts

Coastal vegetation belts have actual benefits economically and these benefits will be extended if vegetation belts are planned according to tsunami disaster mitigation. Sometimes the existing of coastal vegetation does not provide maximum protection from the tsunami hazard. In developing countries, budgeting against tsunami hazard is very limited, coastal vegetation plan as natural mitigation becomes a chosen method in tsunami disaster prevention; cheap, easy, locally benefit, and useful.

The aim of this study is to apply AHP and SWOT analysis on GIS to establish an applicable strategy for reducing tsunami disaster by coastal vegetation plan. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) used as a multi criteria decision making approach, in which factors are arranged in a hierarchic structure based on expert choices opinion and SWOT analysis is one of the powerful methods to evaluate a strategy planning in projects. In order to set input data for this analysis, questionnaire survey was conducted at four rural villages in Pacitan city, which is a typical populated coastal city in Indonesia, located in East Java province. We also conducted the field survey in this city, especially focused on the condition of vegetation and evaluate government policy about land use plan against tsunami hazard, in order to evaluate vegetation plan on GIS as well as to conduct AHP and SWOT analysis.

This study examined the results of both AHP and SWOT analysis, and also discussed the applicable strategy of vegetation plan for reducing tsunami disaster in Pacitan city based on GIS vegetation plan. The vegetation analysis using GIS cleared that some villages are out of the protected area under existing plant against tsunami hazard, and vegetation plan should be considered with the results of AHP and SWOT analysis.

Key words: coastal, vegetation belt, tsunami, GIS, AHP, SWOT