FUTURE PREDICTION OF THE EXPANSION OF BUILT-UP AREAS IN BATAM FREE TRADE ZONE (FTZ) USING LAND CHANGE MODELER

Abstract. The establishment of Batam City as a Free Trade Zone (FTZ) encourages the city’s growth, as manifested in massive built-up area expansion. The aim of this paper was to analyze the pattern of built-up area expansion in FTZ Batam in 2035 based on the corresponding pattern from 2000 to 2015. Land Change Modeler (LCM) was the instrument used to determine and analyze land cover changes in 2000–2015, from which future changes or built-up area expansion in 2035 were predicted using the validated 2020 land cover map as reference. The validation test based on the Kappa Index of Agreement yielded 96%. The prediction results showed that, compared with 2020, the built-up area in 2035 would have increased by 31.8% and expanded towards the outskirts of FTZ Batam. This sprawl follows the location of the primary activity centers in the FTZ, as allocated in Presidential Regulation of the Republic of Indonesia No. 87 of 2011. A new expansion is expected to continue into existing open space and extensive untouched forest areas. These research findings provide a concept that can be utilized to formulate certain policies and regional planning in the future.