The Land Evaluation System for Sustainable Settlement in Banda Aceh, Indonesia

This article reviews the concept of land suitability evaluation and its possible application in land settlement study. The focus is concentrated on the criteria, parameter and variable of the research results performed on the earthquake and tsunami disaster zones on the west coast of northern Sumatra Island, Indonesia in December 26th, 2004. Banda Aceh is the largest residential area and most severely affected by the earthquake and tsunami tragedy. Today being ten years after the disaster, there is need to review the physical environment of the affected areas in order to evaluate the conformity and sustainability in fulfilling the purpose of new sustainable settlement to forestal the reoccurence of the worse incident among the future generations. The evaluation of land suitability has been broadly used specifically for agricultural lands. This study gives a review of land suitability for settlement with main focus on the working method that requires the assembling of criteria, variables and parameters that can be observed and measured. It is important to ascertain the relationship between land characteristic/quality and ideal condition requirement of settlement that is free from disaster. The results can be used in the development of criteria, variable and parameter for spatial land suitability model for the ongoing stage of research.