Geographic Information System Based Suitable Temporary Shelter Location for Mount Merapi Eruption

Abstract

Merapi is an active volcano in the Sleman District with eruptions occurring periodically. However, the time and the power of the eruptions of Merapi could not be predicted accurately. Therefore, considering the dense population around the peak of Mount Merapi, appropriate and fast handling is needed when an eruption occurs. One of the crucial parts to be handled is the availability of evacuation places for the affected population. Even though Sleman district already has contingency and evacuation plans, the existing contingency and evacuation plans cannot necessarily be implemented, as in the case of the 2010 eruption. The locations planned as the shelters based on the contingency and evacuation plans of 2009 are no longer safe, including the permanent shelters owned by Sleman Regency. Thus, in the 2010 eruption, the refugees had to be evacuated to other safe places. Hence, some additional locations planned to be temporary refuges or shelters are needed to anticipate the change in eruption patterns in the future. This paper aims to provide a model to determine suitable temporary shelter locations that meet several criteria, which include constraints (exclusionary criteria) and factors (evaluation criteria). The criteria in this study were defined based on a literature review, interviews, and a questionnaire survey on experts who have experience in the field of disasters, especially in the eruption of Mount Merapi. Constraint criteria are used to determine the candidates for shelters, i.e., the locations that are possible to be used as shelters. Potential shelters will be selected from the candidates that meet the factor criteria using geographic information system (GIS), fuzzy logic, multi-criteria decision making (analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and weighted linear combination (WLC)). The implementation of the model in the 2010 eruption case shows that the refugees experienced moving to a safe place three times during the evacuation, within a safe radius of 10, 15, and 20 km due to the increase in the power of the eruption. In this paper, therefore, the potential temporary shelters will be designed at a safe radius of 10, 15, and 20 km. For further research, the potential shelters determined can be used as input in determining the optimal shelter locations by developing an optimization model.