Identifying Potential New Residential Areas Based on Physical Conditions Using the Weighted Overlay Method on Batam Island, Batam City

Abstract

The population growth on Batam Island has led to an increased need for new residential areas. Therefore, it is necessary to identify areas with suitable physical conditions for housing development planning. This study uses the Weighted Overlay method in a Geographic Information System (GIS) to identify potential new residential areas based on physical conditions. The parameters used include slope, soil type, and rainfall. Each parameter was reclassified based on suitability scores, weighted, and overlaid to produce four classes of suitability: unsuitable, less suitable, suitable, and highly suitable. The analysis results show that the "suitable" class is the largest at 17,175.07 hectares, followed by the "somewhat suitable" class at 16,297.09 hectares, the "highly suitable" class at 2,980.28 hectares, and the "unsuitable" class at 1,374.14 hectares. Next, we validated the Weighted Overlay results by overlaying them with Regional Spatial Plan (RTRW) data for residential areas only. The validation results show that residential areas in the RTRW fall into all four classes: 159 ha (unsuitable), 602 ha (less suitable), 497 ha (suitable), and 644 ha (highly suitable). This indicates that most of the planned residential areas in the RTRW are in areas with good suitability levels based on physical conditions. Thus, the Weighted Overlay method can be used to identify potential new residential areas on Batam Island.