SELECTING RELOCATION OF LAND USE IN HOT MUD DISASTER AREA BY APPLYING GEO-ENVIRONMENTAL EVALUATION. CASE STUDY: SIDOARJO, EAST JAVA, INDONESIA

Abstract

Since May 29, 2006, a sea of hot mud has been gushing from the ground in Sidoarjo, East Java, 35 kilometers south of Indonesia’s second largest city, Surabaya. Due to this disaster, approximately thousand of people have been forced from their homes because 600 ha of land and villages were submerged, farmland was ruined, businesses and schools closed as the mud inundated the surrounding area. Relocation of the land uses and supporting infrastructures are become important to support the human survivability and environmental sustainability in this disaster area. In order to select the suitable location for land uses and infrastructures, aspect of environmental geology must be concerned. Geo-Environmental parameters such as geological hazards and geological resources are used to select the suitable relocation area. Evaluation of the suitable land uses is conducted by applying simple overlay rating method. Result of this evaluation shows that the relocation of the land uses can be differentiated into three categories; (i) high risk land use/infrastructure, moderate risk land use/infrastructure and low risk land use/infrastructure. Each of these categories have difference map of relocation suitability, however all maps indicate that the suitable relocation area is in the west-part from the hot mud disaster area.


Keywords: Hot mud blast, relocation of land uses, geo-environmental evaluation