Spatial Differentiation and Maritime Livelihood Adaptation in Coastal Fishing Settlements: Implications for Adaptive Coastal Planning in Bandar Rahmat Village, Batu Bara, Indonesia
This study utilizes a mixed-methods approach and a newly developed Spatial Livelihood Index to demonstrate that Bandar Rahmat Village in Indonesia exhibits significant internal spatial differentiation in maritime livelihood adaptation, arguing that recognizing this continuum rather than viewing coastal settlements as homogeneous is essential for effective adaptive coastal planning.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Coastal villages have always been places where human life and the ocean meet in a constant, shifting dance. For generations, planners and researchers have often looked at these communities and seen a single, uniform picture: a row of houses facing the sea, where everyone relies on fishing, and the layout of the village is dictated entirely by the tides. This view assumes that if you are a fishing village, you are all the same, reacting to change in the same way. But the reality of how people live is rarely that simple. When a community faces new roads, changing jobs, or a growing population, the way they rearrange their homes and daily lives can vary wildly, even within the same small area. Understanding these subtle differences is crucial because it changes how we plan for the future. If we treat a diverse village as a single, simple block, our plans might miss the specific needs of the people living there, potentially harming the very livelihoods we hope to protect.
A team of researchers from the State University of Medan set out to test this assumption in Bandar Rahmat, a traditional fishing village on the eastern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Instead of accepting the idea that the village was a single, homogeneous unit, they walked through its six distinct neighborhoods, or hamlets, to see how the physical layout of the homes and the daily lives of the residents actually differed. They did not just count fish or measure income; they looked at the shape of the streets, the type of houses, where people stored their fishing gear, and how easily they could reach the water. By combining these physical observations with interviews about how families made a living, they created a new way to measure how "maritime" a neighborhood truly is. They called this the Spatial Livelihood Index, a tool that rates a place based on how deeply its daily life and building design are tied to the sea, rather than just looking at whether people have boats.
What they found was a landscape of surprising variety. The village was not a single block of identical fishing homes, but a patchwork of different worlds existing side by side. In the southern part of the village, the hamlets had transformed into what the researchers call "transitional" settlements. Here, the houses were built of permanent concrete and brick, often facing the new roads rather than the ocean. The layout was dense and tight, with little space between buildings. In these areas, fishing was still important, but it was no longer the only thing driving the community's shape. People had diversified their work, opening small roadside shops or taking on other jobs, and their homes reflected this shift, separating their living spaces from their workspaces. The connection to the sea was still there, but it was becoming more distant, both physically and in daily routine.
As the researchers moved northward, the character of the village changed dramatically. In the middle hamlets, the architecture became a hybrid of old and new. The houses were still raised high on stilts to protect against the tides, a traditional feature, but the materials had updated to include modern concrete and metal. These homes were not just places to sleep; the space underneath the raised floors was actively used as a workshop to store nets and repair boats. The layout of these neighborhoods remained closely tied to the water, with paths and social interactions centered around the fishing grounds. Further north, in the most remote hamlets, the settlement was sparse and spread out, with houses nestled among open land and coastal vegetation. Here, the connection to the ocean was the strongest. The houses were directly accessible from the water, and the daily rhythm of the community was still dictated entirely by the fishing schedule and the tides.
The study revealed that these differences were not random. They formed a clear, measurable gradient. The researchers assigned a score to each hamlet to show its level of maritime orientation. The southern hamlets scored lower, indicating a shift toward a land-based, road-oriented lifestyle. The northern hamlets scored much higher, showing a deep, functional dependence on the sea. This proved that a single village could contain multiple stages of adaptation at the same time. It was not a case of the whole village slowly turning from a fishing community into a modern town. Instead, some parts had already adapted to a mixed economy, while others remained deeply rooted in traditional maritime life. The physical distance from the sea mattered less than how the community used its space. A house near the water could be part of a land-oriented neighborhood if the residents had shifted their economic focus, while a house slightly further away could remain a hub of fishing activity if the daily life there was still centered on the ocean.
This discovery challenges the way we usually think about coastal planning. For a long time, the assumption has been that fishing villages are uniform, so a single plan could work for all of them. The evidence from Bandar Rahmat suggests that this approach is flawed. If a planner treats the entire village as one unit, they might build a road or a new market that helps the southern, road-oriented part but accidentally destroys the delicate balance of the northern, sea-dependent part. The researchers argue that we need to see these villages as complex systems with internal differences. The future of coastal planning should not be about applying a one-size-fits-all solution, but about recognizing that different neighborhoods within the same village are living different lives. By understanding these specific, local adaptations, we can create strategies that help communities survive and thrive without forcing them into a mold that doesn't fit. The story of Bandar Rahmat is a reminder that even in a place defined by the sea, the way people live is as varied and unique as the people themselves.
Drowning in papers in your field?
Get daily digests of the most novel papers matching your research keywords — with technical summaries, in your language.