Remote Sensing and Gis Based Environmental Suitability Analysis of Resettlement Sites: The Case of Chawaka (Western Oromia, Ethiopia
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Date
2011-02
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Addis Ababa Universty
Abstract
Environmental suitability analysis of resettlement site is a complicated integration of
various ecological and social factors that affect human livelihood. It is a crucial step
for the achievement of the objectives of the resettlement programs as well as for
guarantying the sustainability of the environment. Remote sensing and GIS
technology offers a convenient and powerful platform to integrate spatially complex
and different ecological factors for performing environmental suitability analysis.
Hence, the main purpose of this study is the objective analysis and mapping of
environmental suitability of Chewaka resettlement site in terms of the basic biophysical
and socio-economic environmental factors and eventually identifying the
suitable and unsuitable areas using Remote Sensing and GIS. The weighted overlay
techniques are applied to arrive at the final environmental suitability mapping. The
bio-physical and socio-economic factors used for evaluation of environmental
suitability of the resettlement site are land use/land cover, climate, soil, topography,
malaria prevalence, proximity, and infrastructural facility. The result showed that
34% of the area has highly suitable climate for human resettlement. However the
majority of the area has a moderately suitable topography and soil, while only
about 5% of the area has highly suitable infrastructural facility. Generally, the
overall weighted suitability analysis of the area indicates that only 2% of the area
has high suitability condition. The remaining 32% and 65% is moderately and
marginally suitable for human resettlement.
Key words: Resettlement, Chewaka wereda, Multi Criteria Evaluation, Weighted
Overlay Analysis.
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Keywords
Resettlement, Chewaka wereda, Multi Criteria Evaluation, Weighted Overlay Analysis.