Abstract:
Sathingphra district, Songkhla province has various land use types with rapidly changing by natural, socio-economic and political factors. This fast changing leads to environmental problems. The creation of stakeholders understanding on the interactions among components in the system and possible environmental impacts through the participatory process are necessary. The thesis is an integrated studies implemented in Thahin, Bordang and Watchan sub-districts because of diverse agricultural activities in this area. This project aims to identify the land use plan by integrating geoinformatics, learning models and participatory process. There are 3 main steps in this research: (i) study of land use change in past 30 years (1986 - 2015) by using geographic information system (GIS), and in-depth interviews of stakeholders, (ii) study environmental perceptions of stakeholders, and (iii) create and use integrative (ecosystems, socio-economic and geoinformatics) participatory models to exchange learning of key interactions in the system and identify the land use plan. The results found that paddy field was the major decreasing land use. Most of the paddy area were converted into human settlement and plantation, especially oil palm because of the government promotion project. In addition, abandoned paddy fields were increased in recent years caused by economic factors, especially the decline in rice price. This stimulated farmer to work off-farm and left paddy field abandoned. For the environmental perception, 63.93% of stakeholders had lack understanding about impacts of land use change and water pollution. This result were then used to create integrative participatory models in form of gaming and simulations. Three models were created, including participatory mapping, Sathingphra monopoly game and City builder game. The results after using models revealed that stakeholders had improved their understanding on environmental problems and some of them change their behavior to save environment. Finally, the land use plan was collective proposed such as promoting the use of organic fertilizer and improvement of soil quality in agricultural areas.