ABSTRACT
Developing countries, like Indonesia, encounter difficulties in agriculture development due to the decrease in available dry lands. They are left with no choice other than to make use of problematic soils for wetland agricultural activities. South Kalimantan is one of such areas in Indonesia with a large region of swamplands and has a history of utilizing wetlands for agricultural purposes. There is an urgent need for the evaluation and quantification of the base map for wetland development. Remote sensing data have been applied to the study of wetland in many countries because it is economical compared to the conventional mapping technique. Currently many satellite datasets, both optic and microwave ranges, are available for public use. The objective of this study is to map the wetland and swampland that are suitable for agriculture activities in South Kalimantan using remote sensing data. In particular we used the SRTM and ALOS PALSAR images which are radar data that can detect elevation and wet areas. This research first used DEM SRTM 30 m to obtain the baseline of wetlands or alluvium areas. Afterwards, ALOS PALSAR Mosaic data was used in combination with the random forest method to estimate areas suitable for agriculture. Results showed that the baseline area of wetlands in South Kalimantan is 999,768 ha. Swamplands suitable for agriculture are about 669,185 ha or 67% of the wetland. This method can be readily applied to other areas in the tropical regions as a cost-efficient method for wetland mapping.
