87 JGISE Vol. 1 No. 2 (2018). 87-93 | https://doi.org/10.22146/jgise.40861 JGISE Journal of Geospatial Information Science and Engineering ISSN: 2623-1182 | https://jurnal.ugm.ac.id/jgise Expedition Oe: A Visual-storytelling map on Rote Island’s Lakes Dany Laksono 1 , Atriyon Julzarika 1,2* , Luki Subehi 3* , Hanhan A. Sofiyuddin 4* , Esthi K. Dewi 2* , Kayat 5* , Media Fitri Isma N. 6* 1,2 Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta 2 Lembaga Penerbangan dan Antariksa (LAPAN) 3 Lembaga Penelitian dan Ilmu Pengetahuan (LIPI) 4 Kementrian Pekerjaan Umum dan Perumahan Rakyat (PUPERA) 5 Kementrian Lingkungan Hidup dan Kehutanan (KLHK) 6 Kementrian Kelautan dan Perikanan (KKP) Article History: Received 13 November 2018 Received in revised form 22 January 2019 Accepted 23 January 2019 Available online 31 January 2019 ABSTRACT. Rote Island has long been known as a tourism destination, especially for its beaches and small islands which are well known surfing spots. However, many other aspects of Rote Island, such as its inland waters, left unexplored and are unknown to tourists or stakeholders. The lack of infrastructure is one of the factors causing underdevelopment in these areas. This paper reports the outcome of an expedition set to uncover the uniqueness of Rote Island’s tourism potential, especially on its inland waters. The expedition involves multidisciplinary researchers from some of Indonesian institutions related to inland waters, such as LAPAN, LIPI, PUPERA, KLHK and KKP to conduct some preliminary research on Rote Island’s saltwater lake. Mobile devices equipped with GIS software were used to obtain data during the survey. Some of the findings including the misleading toponyms found in online sources of the lakes, the biogeophysical condition of the lakes, as well as vegetations and wildlife of the area. The Rote Island Snake-necked Turtle (Chelodina Mccordi) is one of the near-extinct species which habitat needs to be identified and well- preserved, thus tourism should take into account natural preservation in the lakes and its surroundings. Based on the results we suggest that a Geopark should be initialized in and around Rote Island’s lakes. These findings are presented as a storytelling map, both to attract tourism and to emphasize the geospatial aspects of the lakes. A WebGIS is also developed to integrate data from different institutions to aide decision making. The result is geopark4rote.com, which present the storytelling map and WebGIS to be used by tourist and decision makers alike to explore the richness of Rote Island through geospatial data. Keywords: Stroytelling map, Rote Island, WebGIS Corresponding Author: Atriyon Julzarika Email: verbakhov@gmail.com © Author(s) 2018. This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0). 1. Pendahuluan Secara geografis, Pulau Rote (Roti Island) terletak pada 10°25' - 11°00' Lintang Selatan dan 121°49' - 123°26' Bujur Timur (Kabupaten Rote Ndao, 2018). Posisi geografis ini menyebabkan Pulau Rote merupakan pulau paling selatan dari Negara Kepulauan Republik Indonesia. Pulau Rote sendiri terdiri dari setidaknya 94 buah pulau besar dan kecil yang termasuk dalam wilayah Kabupaten Rote Ndao. Berkat posisi geografis serta bentuk topografinya tersebut, Pulau Rote memiliki keanekaragaman hayati yang sangat beragam. Demikian pula, struktur geologis Pulau Rote menyebabkan berbagai bentukan alam yang sangat menarik dan memiliki potensi wisata yang cukup tinggi. Diantara keunikan yang terdapat di Pulau Rote adalah sejumlah danau yang tersebar di seluruh wilayah Pulau Rote, dari bagian barat hingga ke timur. Sebagian danau di Pulau Rote memiliki keunikan, yaitu kadar garamnya yang sangat tinggi sehingga menjadikan beberapa danau tersebut sebagai danau laut mati (Nikodemus, Susanto, & Sudira, 2004). Kondisi danau air asin ini juga memungkinkan berkembangnya berbagai species hewan maupun tumbuhan yang unik, sehingga menambah kekayaan hayati Pulau Rote secara keseluruhan (Zitierung, Wright, & Lewis, 2012).