Jurnal Geografi 16(1) (2019) 25-31 JURNAL GEOGRAFI https://journal.unnes.ac.id/nju/index.php/JG Trend Analysis of Land Cover Changes, Population and Settlement Distribution to Land use Assessment in Kebumen Regency Ratih Fitria Putri* 1 , Lucia Sandra Budiman 2 , Natasya Michelle Adalya 3 , Navila Ulf Fauziyanti 4 1,2,3,4 Department of Environmental Geography, Faculty of Geography, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, 55281, Indonesia Article Info Abstract Article History Dikirim Desember 2018 Diterima Januari 2019 Terbit Januari 2019 The condition of population growth in Kebumen Regency tends to increase every year. This dynamic population condition can also change the land cover trends. Based on this background, identification of trends in land cover changes is quite interesting to study which aims to facilitate land use planning for stakeholders in the relevant region. The objectives of the study include (1) analyzing the dynamics of the population of Kebumen Regency, (2) analyzing the pattern of land cover changes, and (3) analyzing the population pressure on agricultural land. This study used aerial photography data from 2006 to 2016 to determine land cover types and the GIS conditional functions were used for settlement distribution mapping. The data processing results was done by quantitative descriptive analysis. The results showed that (1) Kebumen Subdistrict is an area with the highest population among other sub-districts and it has high population pressure towards land uses around 2,478 people/Km2, (2) mixed gardens each year tend to decrease in area of 98.39 km2, while settlements and paddy fields increase by 43.55 km2 and 235.95 km2. (3) Increase in population numbers and density in some districts of Kebumen are directly proportional to the level of pressure on agricultural land which is also high. © 2019 The Authors. Published by UNNES. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Keywords: land cover changes; population density; settlement distribution p-ISSN 2549-3078 e-ISSN 2549-3094 INTRODUCTION Kebumen Regency is one of the regions in Central Java Province, Indonesia, which located astronomically at 7 o 27’-7 o 50’ Southern Latitude and 109 o 22’-109 o 50’ Eastern Longitude (Figure 1). Geographically, Kebumen Regency borders with Banjarnegara and Wonosobo Regencies in the North; Indian Ocean in the South; Cilacap and Banyumas Regencies in the West; and Purworejo Regency in the East. Kebumen Regency, consists of 26 districts, has a total area of 1281.12 km 2 , with the smallest district as Gombong (19.48 km 2 ) that forms 8% of the total area, while the largest area is Karanggayam with 109.29 km 2 or 8.53% of the total area of Kebumen Regency (BPS, 2018). Overall, the population of Kebumen Regency tends to decrease every year. It was proven in 2005 that the population of Kebumen was 1,212,274 people and decreased in 2017 to 1,192,007 (BPS, 2018). This is caused by the habits of several regions where some people used to migrate out of town with economic factors as a main reason (Neimark, Toulmin and Batterbury, 2018). However, if reviewed more specifically, increase of population occurs in several districts, such as Gombong, Karanganyar and Kebumen. For example, Kebumen District in 2005 (BPS, 2014) had a population of 120,524 people and became 123,567 in 2017 (BPS, 2018). This dynamic population conditions can also chan- ge land use trends (Putri, Bayuaji, Sumantyo, and Kuze, 2013). Based on this background, identifica- tion of trends in land use change is quite interesting to study which aims to facilitate land use planning for stakeholders in the relevant region. Land use change is driven by a combination of socioecono- mic, political and biophysical factors, the so-called land use drivers (Sitompul, Brouwer, Sopahelu- wakan, and van Beukering, 2016). Furthermore, main causes of land use change are hypothesized as population growth and construction activities. DOI 10.15294/jg.v16i1.17749 * E-mail : ratihfitria.putri@ugm.ac.id Address : Jl. Kaliurang, Sekip Utara, Bulaksumur Sinduadi Kabupaten Sleman, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta 55281