Causality of Land Use Shifts and Water Availability Variability in the Liliba Oebobo Watershed of Kupang City

Abstract

Liliba Watershed is one of the watersheds located in Kupang City that is also experiencing a shift in land use due to the logical consequences of being the center of government of NTT Province, industrial development and a high population growth rate that increases the need for land and land use change that has the potential to have an impact on water system conditions, namely watershed water availability. This study aims to analyze the causality of land use shifts on the variability of water availability in the Liliba watershed. The methods used are spatial analysis to obtain land use shift data, hydrological analysis to obtain water availability variability data and parametric to analyze the causality of land use shift on water availability variability with Liliba watershed as the unit of analysis. The data used is observational data within the last 10 years (2013 - 2022). Spatial data analysis was conducted through interpretation of Landsat TM 8 image processing results, hydrological analysis using the Mock model water balance analysis method, and parametric analysis using multiple linear regression models using the SPSS v.18 for Windows tool at a significance level of 95% (α = 0.05). The results showed that simultaneously (sig.=0.109) there was no significant effect of land use shifts on the variability of water availability in the Liliba watershed although partially land use shifts in settlements/built-up land (sig.=0.025), forests (sig.=0.037), and shrubs (sig.=0.016) had a significant effect while waters (sig.=0.052) and agriculture/plantations (sig.=0.377) had no significant effect. Settlement/built-up land (regression coef. = 0.044) had the most influence compared to the other four land use types on the variability of water availability in Liliba watershed.