The (Un)Disrupted Place: Investigating Urban Coastal Transformation Through a Place-Attachment Lens for Resilience

Slow-onset hazards are intensifying coastal land transformation, yet their socio-environmental implications remain insufficiently understood. The coastal area of Semarang-Demak, Indonesia, represents a critical case due to long-term land subsidence, recurrent tidal flooding, and extensive coastal development interventions. In response to this gap, this study integrates open-access Earth observation with place-attachment perspectives to investigate how urban coastal transformation is materially produced and socially experienced. Multi-temporal Landsat imagery from 1994 to 2024 was processed in Google Earth Engine using the Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI), complemented by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI). The results show spatially uneven coastal land transformation, with 13.02 km2 of the study area indicating increased MNDWI values (to-water transformation), while 11.75 km2 experienced to-land transformation associated with declining MNDWI values. Further analysis using NDVI and NDBI suggests that part of the to-land transformation reflects anthropogenic built-area expansion, as indicated by areas where NDBI differences exceed NDVI differences. Empirical field observations and interview data contextualize these spatial findings by revealing contrasting yet persistent place attachment across reclamation-influenced areas and communities exposed to erosion and flooding. Building on these findings, the study proposes the notion of the (un)disrupted place to explain how disruption, efforts for resilience and continuity coexist unevenly across coastal space. This study advances a socio-environmental understanding of coastal land transformation and highlights the need for more equitable and multidisciplinary approaches to coastal governance and resilience planning.