Analysis of dominant land cover class based on land change cluster pattern in West Java Province

Study of land cover change is important in order to understand the global environmental change. One of the causes of land cover change is human activity in an effort to fulfil their needs, such as agriculture and settlement. In an administrative area, land cover change occurs in several locations and sometimes grouped in adjacent locations. Each location may have different type of land cover change. The understanding of land cover dynamics can be enhanced by identifying the dominant land cover change, which will lead to a better land cover management. By analysing each grouping area, it indicates the pattern and concentration of the type of land cover change, so it can appropriately support the regional management and development strategies. Hence, it is necessary to identify the characters of each grouping area so that the characteristics of the class of land cover change can be obtained. The dominant land cover change is identified by analysing the mode of land cover change in each area. The results show that the dominant land cover change in West Java in 2005-2010 are heterogeneous, with the top three broadest classes changes are rice field to field/moor (144,662.76 hectares), forest to fields/moor (36,339.84 hectares), and fields/moor to settlement (36,069.39 hectares). This study managed to identify 99.94% of the grouping areas are the dominant land cover change and 0.06% of the grouping areas are remained the same class. These results are expected to continue the development of land cover change model in West Java.