Mahasiswa Pecinta Alam UGM Teliti Merapi
Mahasiswa Pecinta Alam UGM Teliti Merapi
Universitas Gadjah Mada’s students who join MAPAGAMA, nature enthusiast group, have conducted an expedition on Mt. Merapi during the UGM Research Expedition (URE) project. For six months from October 2016 - March 2017, they will observe the area of the most active volcano in Indonesia.
Expedition team chairman, Jalu Lintang, they sent up to six members to the mountain, who are Jalu Lintang and Priyantono Nugroho (Anthropology), Fadil Ramadan (Archeology), Rizal Fahmi (Forestry), Anggita Swestiana (Tourism), and Dimas Dwi Septian (Geophysics). “We’re focusing on four areas of research, geophysics, tourism, anthropology, and forestry,” he said on Tuesday (21/2) on campus.
Jalu said they had conducted research to predict the direction of the pyroclastic eruption of the mountain as well as implementation of disaster risk management for tourism development of the Pentingsari village.
Besides, they observed the Jalin Merapi community that had been established for eruption mitigation to know the role of the community in disaster mitigation.
In addition, “We will study the water potential on the Merapi south slopes to fulfill the need for the surrounding people,” said Jalu.
The Merapi expedition public relations officer, Fadil Ramadhan, said this expedition could produce useful information not only for the nearby community, but also the wider public.
“This expedition is expected to give scientific information on eruption tracks, disaster management based tourism village, and water potential at Merapi,” he said.
Fadil said this expedition posed a big challenge because it requires systemic way of thinking as well as good endurance from the team to work on the mountain.
“Before the expedition, we did regular exercise to train ourselves whilst climbing the mountain for doing the research,” he said.