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IICST2020: 5th International Workshop on Innovations in Information and Communication Science and Technology, Malang, Indonesia
MONITORING SURFACE WATER DYNAMIC USING CLOUD COMPUTING
PLATFORM OF GOOGLE EARTH ENGINE
Fatwa Ramdani
1
, Putri Setiani
2
1
Geoinformatics Research Group, Brawijaya University, Indonesia, fatwaramdani@ub.ac.id
2
Environmental Engineering, Brawijaya University, Indonesia, psetiani@ub.ac.id
ABSTRACT
Water is important resources and the pattern of water dynamics is needed to be monitored. Cloud computing
platform named Google Earth Engine (GEE) has benefited the scientists with a limited computing system to
monitor large scale water reservoir in multi-period with large size to monitor any reservoir whole over the world.
This study introduced the novel and reproducible series of steps to monitor the surface water dynamics using GEE
platform study case Selorejo reservoir located in East Java, Indonesia. This study found that during 2017 and 2018
the surface water condition of Selorejo reservoir is relatively in good condition while in 2019 the surface water
experienced dramatic decreased due to long dry seasons. The novel procedure proposed in this study is efficient
to be applied in any other large scale reservoir.
Key words: big data, reservoir, water dynamic.
1. INTRODUCTION
Water level is an important indicator in a major water body such as large reservoirs and rivers. Changes in water
level condition determine the functionality of the water body, both regarding its service for the natural ecosystem
and other services that are related to human activities. Selorejo reservoir, the area of interest in this study, is situated
in Malang Regency, East Java, Indonesia. Located about 600 meters above sea level, this reservoir is used for
electricity generation with a capacity average of 4.5 MW.
Water levels in reservoirs are mainly influenced by two factors, (1) seasonal variation, and (2) by the operator
of a hydropower plant, who discharges water through the turbines or stores water in the reservoir, in a fashion that
maximizes profit (Hirsch et al., 2014). Dynamics of water level in a hydropower plant may significantly impact
the capacity of electricity generation. A previous study in using Google Earth Engine (GEE) for water environment
has been done by Hird et al. (2017), where a workflow was developed to predict the probability of wetland
occurrence within northeastern Alberta, Canada. The study found that the GEE is effective and efficient to support
the Alberta Merged Wetland Inventory.
This study aims to propose novel and reproducible series of steps to monitor the surface water dynamics of
reservoir using cloud computing of GEE platform.
2. STUDY AREA
The study area is Selorejo reservoir located in Malang Regency, East Java, Indonesia. Situated between Kelud
Mountain, Anjasmoro Mountain, and Kawi Mountain, and in relatively high elevation, approximately 600 meters
above sea level, make the cool climate around the reservoir. The Selorejo Hydroelectric Power Plant (PLTA) is
located at Pandansari Village, Ngantang District. It was built in 1970 and started operating since July 24, 1973
with a capacity of 4.5 Mega Watt (MW) (ESDM, 2015).
The Selorejo reservoir is used as the source of electric power generation. Electricity generated from the Selorejo
hydropower plant sent through a 70 kV transmission network is used to meet the electricity needs of the Malang
area (ESDM, 2015). Therefore monitoring the surface water level dynamics is very important for a sustainable
energy source.
3. DATA AND METHOD
To access the GEE, the user could enter the URL address, https://code.earthengine.google.com/. When using GEE
platform user have to import the dataset that will be used in the analysis. In this study, we import the Sentinel-2
MSI Level-1c. Then we define the boundary of the study area. The Selorejo boundary is in shapefile format derived
from http://tanahair.indonesia.go.id/. To import the shapefile we used “importing Table data” module within the
GEE platform. Next step is filtering the dataset, we only use data with the cloud-free condition. The result then