Detecting the Affected Areas of Mount Sinabung Eruption using Landsat 8 Imageries Based on Reflectance Change

The position of Indonesia as part of a "ring of fire" bringing the consequence that the life of the nation and the state will also be influenced by volcanism. Therefore, it is necessary to map rapidly the affected areas of a volcano eruption. Objective of the research is to detect the affected areas of Mount Sinabung eruption recently in North Sumatera by using optical images Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI). A pair of Landsat 8 images in 2013 and 2014, period before and after eruption, was used to analysis the reflectance change from that period. Affected areas of eruption was separated based on threshold value of reflectance change. The research showed that the affected areas of Mount Sinabung eruption can be detected and separated by using Landsat 8 OLI images based on the change of reflectance value band 4, 5 and NDVI. Band 5 showed the highest values of decreasing and band 4 showed the highest values of increasing. Compared with another uses of single band, the combination of both bands (NDVI) give the best result for detecting the affected areas of volcanic eruption