Evaluation of Urban Landscape Dynamics and Its Impact on Agricultural Land: The Case of Gondar Town, Ethiopia
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Date
2018-11
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Rapid urbanization is a trend seen across the developing world, with the fastest rates of growth seen in Sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, Ethiopia like other African countries has experienced rapid expansion of urbanization due to economic development, industrialization, massive migrations as well as population growth. This expansion particularly unplanned consumed a huge amount of arable land in the urban milieu and in its surrounding areas. This is the case of Gondar town and its surrounding. Urban landscape dynamic is one of the problems in developing countries. Evaluating and understanding of urban landscape dynamics problems are important for appropriate planning and management of urban environment. This study focused on evaluating urban landscape dynamics and its effect on agricultural land in Gondar town by using Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS). Multi-spectral and multi-temporal Landsat TM (Thematic Mapper) image of 1985, Landsat ETM (Enhanced Thematic Mapper) image 2000 and Landsat OLI (Operational Land Imager) image of 2017 at the resolution of 30 m have been used to study the dynamics of urban expansion and its impact on agricultural land. The supervised classification algorithm was employed to identify the major land use/land cover types in the study area. Five types of land cover were identified: water bodies, vegetation, built up area, agricultural lands and bare lands. Results indicated that the study area has undergone a tremendous change in urban growth and pattern during the study period. Built-up area expanded from 567 ha in 1985, to 1472 ha in 2000 and further expands to 3773.79 ha in 2017, while agricultural areas decreased from 15,524 ha to 15, 1116 ha and 12297 ha during the same period. The increase of built up area is mainly at the expense of other land uses. So as, to alleviate the rapid population growth of the city, it is better to minimize rural-urban migration by creating conducive environment in rural areas. Instead of new housing development on agricultural land, renewal of older buildings and infill development of high rise buildings to meet the demands and needs of the increasing number of population in the town. In addition, construction of condominium house could be another solution. Finally, the use of remote sensing needs to be introduced for developers in order to reducing unplanned urban sprawls and the associated loss of agricultural lands.
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Urban Landscape Dynamics, Gondar Town, Ethiopia, Agricultural Land