IDENTIFIKASI KARAKTERISTIK LINGKUNGAN FISIK DAN PENGETAHUAN MASYARAKAT DALAM KAITANNYA DENGAN PENGURANGAN RISIKO BENCANA DI WILAYAH PESISIR KULONPROGO

Kulonprogo coastal area is a unique and dynamic environment with a variety of resources and potential hazard. Through the concept of disaster risk reduction that focused in pre-disaster activities, identification of physical characteristics and society's knowledge is necessary. Physical environment characteristic, especially the diversity of landforms is ecologically potential in order to reduce hazard or disaster. Society's knowledge about land's multifunctions will basically influence the perception and attitude in coastal area resources management. This study is purposed to identify the physical environment characteristics and determine the level of society's knowledge about multifunction of coastal wetlands related to disaster risk reduction in coastal area of Kulonprogo. Research sites were selected in Glagah, Congot, and Pasirmendit coastal. Primary data for physical characteristics was data collected directly through observation and interviews. Secondary data was collected through the literature study. Qualitative description analysis is used to describe the physical characteristics, while the level of society's knowledge is using quantitative descriptive analysis through the conversion from ordinal value to interval by Likert scale. The results show that the coastal physical characteristics, especially landforms are influenced by three processes, there are the origin landforms of fluvial, marine, and eolin. Landform that is formed are flood plains, natural levees, beach ridge, lagoons, and sand dunes. The potential of mangroves, lagoons, and estuaries are ecologically, economically, and socially beneficials for the society as well as in disaster risk reduction. The society's knowledge level about the ecological function is low, social functions is in high level, while the economical functions is included in medium category. The role of coastal wetlands for disaster risk reduction has a level of society in medium category