Vol 8 No 2 (August 2026): OPEN

Rethinking Coastal Spatial Planning Through Equity: Evidence from Semarang and Dutch Water Governance
Author(s): Trisnanti Widi Rineksi, Enricho Yustisio Alfadillo
DOI: 10.36079/lamintang.jhass-0802.1042
Abstract: Coastal spatial planning frequently triggers severe socio-spatial exclusion. This systematic literature review synthesizes 47 peer-reviewed studies and 8 government documents to evaluate the implementation of Semarang’s Spatial Plan (RTRW 2011–2031) and the Giant Sea Wall project. Despite inclusive policy rhetoric, hard-engineering interventions fail to address severe relative sea-level rise (103–128 mm/year) and land subsidence (100– 120 mm/year), instead externalizing flood risks onto vulnerable populations. Synthesizing these dynamics, the study distills seven critical global implementation gaps: (1) political-economic prioritization over risk zoning, (2) epistemic institutional blindness to geodetic hazards, (3) tokenistic participatory design, (4) fragmented regulatory mandates across administrative silos, (5) commodified tenure insecurity, (6) technical-hydraulic path dependency, and (7) disconnected livelihood compensation frameworks. Drawing on comparative insights from Dutch democratic waterschappen and Room for the River models, the analysis demonstrates how infrastructure-centric spatial governance systematically strips traditional fishing communities of access to marine resources and exacerbates distributional injustice. Moving beyond conventional engineering fixes, this paper argues for an equity-centered spatial governance framework that legally anchors social justice within formal coastal zoning codes. To operationalize these findings, future research must urgently develop spatialized socio-ecological vulnerability indices to quantitatively monitor and map the long-term displacement and economic compression of informal marine economies.