The Impacts of Decreasing Paddy Field Area on Local Climate in Central Java, Indonesia

This article is discussing the impacts of land cover change from paddy field to barren land in small scale area (1,516.5 km2), on the surrounding local climate components in central Java, Indonesia. Data of several climate components from 2000-2010 were collected from weather stations that located separately. The land covers were dominated with cropland and little forest on eastern site, and settlements (urban) on western site. This study confirmed that the decrease in 13.1% of paddy field and the increase in 12.4% of barren land had significantly resulted in low daily actual vapor pressure (ea) during dry months with low rainfalls. The eastern areas that were originally occupied by croplands and trees, responded to the decrease of paddy fields by the increasing of air temperatures. The air temperatures and their variations at urban areas located in the western part were not distinctly affected by the land cover change.