Qualitative study of land use change using geographic information system in Pekanbaru

Abstract

The context of development, land use in terms of it function can be changed from time to time. Pekanbaru urban area, consists of 12 sub-regions with total area 632.26 km2. The aim of the study was to analyze the land use change in terms of space and time. The land use maps which were used for this analysis are those of 1992 and 2004. Results from ArcView GIS (Version 3.2) found that the reduction of land use occurred significantly, particularly in farming and forest sectors in 2004. Mean while, the housing, vegetation/bush and others sectors increased in 2004. On the other hand, urban development could give a negative impact to the environment if the trend of land use change was not planned properly.