Study of Disaster Susceptibility and Economic Vulnerability to Strengthen Disaster Risk Reduction Instruments in Batu City, Indonesia

Abstract

Batu City in East Java has a thriving tourist area, which is not exempt from disaster susceptibility and economic vulnerability. These weaknesses have led to the strengthening of the disaster resilience system becoming a priority in terms of the Batu government’s disaster risk reduction. The main objective of this study is to improve disaster risk management through the reinforcement of the disaster risk reduction instrument, which can improve the alertness and the mitigation capability of DRR. This research analyzed the susceptibility levels of five disasters—flood, landslide, drought, land fire, and COVID-19—using a quantitative method with panel data and a survey questionnaire. The influence variable was disaster susceptibility, which quantified economic vulnerability through ArcGIS and ILWIS analysis to generate the disaster susceptibility rate. Economic vulnerability was analyzed using static panel data in STATA/R, which generated the economic vulnerability index. The results of this research indicate that there are five villages in the high level of vulnerability category, three villages in the moderate level of vulnerability category, and another sixteen villages/urban villages in the low level of vulnerability category. Furthermore, static panel analysis found that local economic vulnerability in Batu is significantly influenced by three of the five disasters discussed in this research.