The Sustainability Status of Lahumoko Watershed Management, North Buton Regency, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia

Abstract

The current management of Lahumoko Watershed is still conventional. Mainly, in agricultural land management, the practices do not use the principles of soil and water conservation. This is not sufficient in supporting people’s lives so that the biological, physical, social, economic and institutional dimensions do not support the sustainability of the Lahumoko Watershed. This study aimed to analyze the sustainability and the factors that have multidimensional influence on the sustainability of the Lahumoko Watershed, North Buton Regency, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. The method used was Rapid Appraisal for Watersheds, adopted from Rapid Appraisal for Fisheries using the Multi-Dimensional Scaling technique. The sustainability status of the Lahumoko Watershed management for the physical, economic and institutional dimensions were still less sustainable, while the biological and social dimensions were fairly sustainable. Some leverage attributes contributing to improving the sustainability of watershed management were patterns of agricultural crop cultivation, plant diversity in forest, management of protected organisms, river biota, management of forest cover, soil and water conservation technologies, agricultural infrastructure, runoff, sedimentation, water quality, education level, relationship pattern of the community, conflict status, land dependency, agricultural productivity, access to resources, access to markets, resource management planning and rule comprehensiveness for watershed management.