Analysis of Land Cover change Due to Gold Mining in Bombana using Sentinel 1A Radar Data

Abstract

The discovery of the gold-mine site in Bombana regency since 2008 brings an economic benefit to local society as well as the threat of environmental damage. Environmental damage poses a serious threat considering that mining activities are essentially destructive by altering the landscape and total environmental ecosystem both on land and in coastal waters. To reduce the potential damage to the environment, a regular monitoring of mining areas needs to be performed. In this research, the change of the land cover area in Bombana due to gold mining activity was evaluated using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, especially Sentinel-1A data. We processed 10 Sentinel 1A data recorded within 2015 to 2017 that produced high kappa accuracy of 63.6%. During the 3 years monitoring, the open land area gradually increased followed by the increase of the mine-site area and decrease of the vegetation area. The result of the processed data indicated that there was a land cover change in the Bombana area due to gold mining activities. Unfortunately, the absence of sentinel data prior to gold mining activities in Bombana causing land cover changes before and after mining cannot be monitored accurately.