Land use changes analysis for Pantai Chenang, Langkawi using spatial patch analysis technique in relation to coastal tourism

ABSTRACT

Landscape change study has brought spatial analysis and metric indices to the forefront of tourism study. Land use transformation, habitat loss and fragmentation are typical processes of landscape change study. Advancement in geographical information system (GIS) with the combination of Patch Analysis program has made landscape change study in spatially assessing the impacts of coastal tourism development possible. In this study, nine land use categories from 1966 to 2012 were delineated and the landscape metrics were performed at class level using Patch Analysis 5.0 and ArcGIS 10.0. Four indices were then computed: number of patches (NumP), edge density (ED), mean patch size (MPS) and mean shape index (MSI). The landscape metrics results of the study show that: (1) NumP associated with build-up, facilities/utilities and recreational patches followed similar patterns, of increasing trend from 1966 to 2012; (2) MPS index show no clear patterns between the land uses; (3) ED for build-up area, facilities/utilities, recreational area and water bodies increased between 1966 and 2012, which showed that classes were becoming more diverse and more abundant; (4) MSI index showed no clear patterns except for the recreational area (increasing) and water bodies (decreasing), which indicated that the recreational class was becoming more complex in patch shape, while the water bodies shape become simpler.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Research University Grant, Universiti Sains Malaysia [1001/PPBGN/816230] and Fundamental Research Grant Scheme, Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia [203/PPBGN/6711155].