Root Causes and Impacts of Frequent Excavations to existing City Infrastructure: A case of Addis Ababa Street and Utility Assets
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Date
2024-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Frequent excavation to existing city infrastructure (FEECI) imposes an adverse health and safety, aesthetic and economic in general, sustainability impacts on individual and community of a given environment particularly, city and country at all. Despite its impacts on economic and/or sustainability issues and hence human welfare in cities around the globe in general and in Addis Ababa city in particular, FEECI was overlooked or neglected by researchers and almost all individuals and/or communities (i.e. instead of being considered as problem, rather it has been accepted just as a ‘normal’, ‘expected’ or ‘allowable’ and ‘unavoidable’ practices).
Therefore, being motivated by an overarching characteristics of city and its infrastructure, and hence with inquiry and curiosity for root causes and impacts of FEECI, the author investigated the root causes and subsequent impacts of the problem (FEECI), on city, exist infrastructure and community particularly, that of Addis Ababa (the capital city of Ethiopia which also further assumed as ‘capital city of Africa’). To achieve this main goal and specific objectives of the research, data were collected via field observation with photographs, videos, note taking; face-to face interview survey with experienced professionals of infrastructural companies as well as questionnaire survey which was used as supplementary tool.
The data were analyzed under the mixed research—combination of both quantitative and qualitative approach, using appropriate and corresponding analysis techniques for each category of data. Descriptive (frequency distribution, measurement of central tendency such as mean/average, mode, median) and inferential statistics (Spearman’s correlation coefficient) were used for analysis of quantitative data obtained via questionnaire survey. Qualitative data collected by face-to face interview, secondary documents and field observations were analyzed by techniques such as narration, thematic analysis (TA) and Content analysis (CA).
Findings from all used methods of the study were triangulated. Results of the study indicated that intentional and unintentional human (infrastructure stakeholders) actions are root causes of FEECI in Addis Ababa city which in turn impose economic and sustainability impacts in terms of: repairing cost, operational cost, societal (health & safety/convenience) and environmental and/or aesthetics (ROSE) impacts on the city and users. These root causes were manifested by 20 indicators whose relative importance (RI) was found ranging from 0.86 to 0.59. ‘Poor/ inappropriate infrastructure construction/ installation methods/ techniques’, ‘Absence/ inapplicability of reliable specifications, standards, guidelines and legal frames for infrastructural related works and Management’ and ‘Overload/miss-utilization of infrastructures beyond their design capacity or their purpose’ were identified as the most important factors manifesting the root causes of FEECI. Empirical equation & regression model used to estimate impacts were also developed. Finally, the researcher has drawn conclusion and forwarded recommendations to concerning bodies based on the results of the research.
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Keywords
City infrastructure, frequent excavations, root causes & impacts of frequent excavations