The Department of Geography, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Indonesia (FMIPA UI), carried out community service activities (pengmas) on geospatial databases for village potential data through High Resolution Spatial Imagery (CSRT) using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Sukakersa Village, Parakansalak District, Sukabumi Regency, Monday (26/9).
The Head of the Geography Department of FMIPA UI, Dr. Supriatna, M.T. explained that this community service is in accordance with the program in the strategic plan of the UI community service program for 2020-2024 and the FMIPA UI community service program.
“This village is a fostered area of the Department of Geography, FMIPA UI, to become one of the villages that implements geospatial database technology in carrying out various activities related to location and maps,” said Dr. Supriatna.
In addition, this community service activity is one of the implementations of the collaboration between the Sukabumi Regency Government and UI which was carried out by a team of students from the Department of Geography, FMIPA UI together with Sukakersa Village officials on September 26, 2022.
Meanwhile, the solution offered in this community service is the creation of a village map based on a GIS-based geospatial database or also called geospatial by name by address in Sukakersa Village.
This began with students extracting building maps in Parakansalak Village by means of on-screen digitization on CSRT.
“Then, the building plots were obtained and tagging was carried out to fill in more detailed information attributes about the residents who occupied the plots,” he said.
In this way, Dr. Supriatna continued, a spatial-based database, or geospatial database, was created. As a result, Sukakersa Village has a geospatial-based digital map.
“In addition, this activity also provided mapping training using GIS-based applications to complete the spatial database for village officials,” he explained.
The Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing expert from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Indonesia, explained that Sukakersa Village is one of the mountainous areas in Sukabumi Regency with an average altitude of over 500 meters above sea level, with cool air and beautiful views in some areas.
Most of the residents work as farmers, and Sukakersa Village’s land is dominated by forests, tea plantations, rice fields, scrubland, and residential areas. Part of the forest is within the Halimun-Salak National Park area.
“Several locations have the potential for natural mountain tourism. Therefore, we will make Sukakersa Village a pilot village for the Department of Geography, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Indonesia, in developing a spatial geodatabase for various purposes,” he said.
According to him, the benefits of developing this geodatabase are for village spatial planning, information on disaster response, mitigation and post-disaster locations, areas of suitability or village potential, participatory mapping by village officials and the community, determining the right target recipients of social assistance, spatial information on tourist locations, and so on.
He added that students have been updating spatial data using their geodatabase since July 2022. This activity is fully supported by the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Indonesia.
“On September 26, 2022, we delivered a hardcopy map of Sukakersa Village along with a digital map in PDF format, and provided training on GIS-based digital map applications,” he added.
