Land degradation (LD) is an important issue worldwide because it affects food production and people’s welfare. Many factors cause land degradation, but in humid tropical areas, erosion is the main factor. More than 100 countries including Indonesia are affected by LD. Watershed management should be prioritized owing to budget constraints, while on the other side, the area affected by LD is very large compared to the size of the existing land area. The middle Citarum sub-watershed (MCSW) is one of the most degraded drylands in Indonesia, where the environment can be considered a typical humid tropical watershed. The objective of this study was to map degraded lands and prioritize restoration using a combined approach of the universal soil loss equation (USLE), the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and geographic information systems (GIS) in a multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) environment. The severity of LD was estimated quantitatively by analyzing the parameters of land use and land cover, slope, soil erosion, productivity, and management. The results indicated that the MCSW is dominated by the potentially degraded land classes (38%), followed by the degraded land classes (21%). The prioritization of LD restoration is suggested in the area of very high and high degraded land. The method developed in this research work could be adopted as a tool to guide decision-makers toward sustainable land resource management in humid tropical watersheds affected by LD.

Understanding spatial change and its driving factors behind coastal development is essential for coastal management and restoration. There is an urgent need for quantitative assessments of sustainable development in the coastal ecosystems that are most affected by anthropogenic activities and climate change. This study built a theme-based evaluation methodology with the Natural-Economic-Social (NES) complex ecosystem and proposed an evaluation system of coastal sustainable development (CSD) to understand the complex interactions between coastal ecosystems and anthropogenic activities. The approach revealed the levels of coastal natural, economic, and social sustainable development in the countries along the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) from 2010 to 2020. The results showed (1) a decreasing trend for coastal sustainable development between 2010 and 2015 and a rapid increasing trend between 2015 and 2020; (2) spatially varied CSD, with higher levels in Europe and Southeast Asia and lower levels in South and West Asia and North Africa; and (3) a strong influence on CSD by a combination of economic and social factors and relatively little influence by natural factors. The study further assessed the natural, economic, and social development scores for 41 countries and compared them with the mean scores (MSR) to classify coastal development patterns into three stages (favorable, transitional, and unfavorable). Finally, in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the study highlighted the importance of more refined global indicators for CSD assessments.

The drivers for coastal flooding may vary from extremely high intensity and persistent rainfall, morphological factors of the coastal area, to extreme waves from the ocean. This means that the flood vulnerability of a coastal area does not solely depend on a single driver but can be a combination with others. A national standard for coastal flooding based on rainfall drivers has been developed. As an evaluation, this study aimed to develop a method for coastal flood-prone mapping by combining rainfall with tidal waves. The steps included the assessment of the coastal flood-prone areas driven by rainfall (CFR) and the coastal flood-prone areas by combined drivers (CFC), which was developed by employing the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), spatial-overlaid, weighted-scored, and logical tests. The coastal area of Mataram City on the Island of Lombok in Indonesia was selected as the study area, since it is frequently affected by flooding. The findings determined the essentiality of the CFC method for identifying flood vulnerability areas. Thus, the minimum standard for CFC parameters can be defined with climatic and land characteristic factors. Further, the findings also identified the need for expert judgment in the development of the CFC weighted score-based method.

The acquisition of dynamic coastline change at fine spatial and temporal resolution is essential for enhancing sustainable coastal economic development and coastal environmental conservation. Port construction, land reclamation, urban development, and sediment deposition have resulted in extensive coastline change. In this study, the coastlines along the 56 coastal countries in 1990, 2000, 2010, 2015, and 2020 were delineated and classified into six categories using Landsat time–series images. Five relevant indices, i.e., the length, length ratio, length change rate, index of coastline utilization degree (ICUD), and fractal dimension (FD), were calculated to analyze and explore the spatiotemporal pattern of the coastlines. The results indicate that: (1) The overall length of the coastlines has increased from 3.45 × 10⁵ km to 3.48 × 10⁵ km in the past 30 years, with a net increase of nearly 3904 km. Between 1990 and 2020, the length of the artificial coastline increased by about 13,835 km (4.9~8.8%), while the length of the natural coastline decreased by 9932 km (95.1~91.2%). The increase in artificial coastline is concentrated in Southeast Asia and South Asia. (2) The coastline fractal dimensions (FDs) of countries and continents show that the average FD values of countries in South Asia (1.3~1.4) and Southeast Asia (1.2~1.3) were higher than other countries in the study regions, meaning that the coastlines in South Asia and Southeast Asia are more complex and curved. (3) The value of the ICUD index increased consistently between 1990 and 2015 (177.7~186.6) but decreased sharply between 2015 and 2020 (186.6~162.4), implying that the impact of human activities on the coastline continued to increase until 2015 and began to decrease after 2015. Our study examined the changes in various types of coastlines, which could be significant for sustainable development and environmental protection in coastal areas.

Indonesia is an Archipelagic State (maritime continent) with a strategic position and high potential in natural resources. Satellite technology is expected to provide answers in managing spatial-based natural resources. This paper presents a Simple Multi Attribute Rating Technique (SMART) method for organizing and evaluating activities of a big and complex problem solution. To illustrate this method, a case study that deal with vendor selection of satellite systems will be discussed in this paper. The activity is integrated in a decision support system (DSS) which is using of the SMART method to determine vendor rankings and an efficient frontier. SMART method is used in this group decision making process because it can divide complex problems into sets of uncomplicated analysis and therefore able to directly influence the understanding of stakeholders on the process used in finding solutions. This group decision making process involves many stakeholders. Satellite system vendor selection is an important issue as the satellite system is a long-term investment commitment for the government. And also the success of satellite application services can be influenced by the vendor selection result. Moreover, the vendor selection of a satellite system is involving multiple stakeholder with multiple criteria decision-making issue. A systematic approach to assess priorities based on the inputs of several stakeholders can improve the group decision-making process. The paper will illustrate that several decision-makers with different conflicting objectives can use the SMART method to arrive at a consensus. This case study indicates that SMART method can be used to improve group decision making in vendor selection that meets stakeholder criteria. This paper found that the proposed SMART model can reduce the time required for vendor selection and the decision-making process become more systematic. A procedure for selecting the number of providers shall be made in a process which presents as an efficient frontier analysis. Finally, results of criteria and cost benefit analysis design scenarios of satellite industry using SMART method are discussed and we will make some conclusions.