Mapping land use/ cover changes & urbanization at subdistricts of Muar, Malaysia

Abstract

Land use/ cover (LULC) changes in Malaysia are drastic and have caused many environment problems. In Malaysia, LULC mapping often emphasized on municipal level and a few on state and national levels. While, mapping in detail level such as village scale is still in dearth. Hence, this study aims to map the LULC changes in a village scale at urban, suburb and rural areas of Muar. Latest available Geographic Information System (GIS) spatial data year 2010 were obtained from Department of Agriculture Muar. The processing methods mainly involve the operation of GIS and Google Earth. We calculated the percentage of urbanization for every sub-district and selected three plots to compare the LULC changes in year 2010 and 2015, a five years' interval. Results showed that urban area, Bandar Maharani has changed slightly in term of overall LULC. For Sungai Terap, agricultural land has greatly declined because it was converted to barren land and open space for new housing, industrial areas and commodity's plants. For rural area, Ayer Hitam's forest cover has shrunk due to deforestation, and therefore it has led to the increase of barren land. Generally, majority of the agricultural lands are abandoned at urban area. Furthermore, agricultural lands in both suburb and rural areas are in poor condition. In conclusion, mapping LULC in village scale is rather significant even a small change is noticeable which is important to consider, particularly for low carbon and sustainable development.