Assessing Mosque Accessibility and Evacuation Capacity in a Dense Urban Area: Case Study of Keuramat, Banda Aceh

Azlan Shah; Ahmad Muhajir; Rauzatul Jannah; Husnus Sawab

Authors

Azlan Shah Universitas Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry Author
Ahmad Muhajir Forest Area Consolidation Center for Region XVIII Department, Ministry of Forestry Author
Rauzatul Jannah Aceh Public Works and Spatial Planning Department Author
Husnus Sawab Universitas Syiah Kuala Author

Keywords:

Mosque-based evacuation, Disaster risk reduction, Shelter capacity, GIS-based spatial analysis, Urban resilience

Abstract

Densely populated urban areas face high disaster risk due to limited open space, constrained evacuation routes, and insufficient emergency shelter capacity. This study evaluates the evacuation performance of two mosques in Keuramat Village, Banda Aceh, with contrasting spatial characteristics, including floor configuration, courtyard availability, and building scale. The study applies three GIS-based analyses: Euclidean buffer analysis, shelter capacity assessment, and household-to-mosque pedestrian network simulation. Results show that 743 residential buildings (96.99%) are located within a 300 m radius of a mosque, and 3,376 people (99.88%) can reach the nearest mosque within 10 minutes on foot. However, under capacity-constrained allocation, the effective accommodation level drops to only 53% of the total population. Baiturrahmah Mosque provides greater evacuation capacity (1,222 people) than Al-Ikhlas Mosque (572 people), mainly due to its larger courtyard area. These findings demonstrate that high accessibility alone does not guarantee adequate evacuation performance when shelter capacity is limited. The study highlights the need to integrate accessibility and capacity in mosque-based evacuation planning and supports the inclusion of mosques as distributed evacuation points in dense urban areas.

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