A Geospatial Approach to Sustainable Urban Planning: Lessons for Morogoro Municipal Council, Tanzania

Sumari, Neema Simon; Xu, Gang; Ujoh, Fanan; Korah, Prosper Issahaku; Ebohon, Obas John; Lyimo, Neema Nicodemus

doi:10.3390/su11226508

Cited by 25 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 43 publications

(56 reference statements)

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“…Landscape metrics studies are also primarily applied to detect the relationship between landscape patterns and land surface temperature [33][34][35][36]. Thus, the studies on urban land use dynamics have not only presented temporal and spatial characteristics of urban development but have also offered evidence to address severe ecological and environmental concerns threatening urban ecosystems [37][38][39]. Referring to the land use maps and changes, policymakers, and urban planners can often identify measures to minimize adverse effects related to urban growth.This study concerns urban expansion in Ethiopia.…”

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confidence: 99%

Urbanization in Small Cities and Their Significant Implications on Landscape Structures: The Case in Ethiopia

et al. 2020

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Fundamental ideas concerning urbanization are primarily based on studies performed in large cities. It is of interest to study whether or not similar phenomena take place in smaller cities. Small cities are an inherent component of urbanization, and in the future, the majority of globalization is expected to occur in small and mid-sized cities. Understanding the effects of small cities on landscape structures is, therefore, an essential component in planning city land expansion. Accordingly, this study focused on six towns of the Oromia Special Zone Surrounding Finfinnee, Ethiopia, which is broadly known to be experiencing dramatic growth. Time-series Landsat images from 1987 to 2019 with an integrated method, landscape metrics, and built-up density analysis were employed to characterize and compare the dynamics of landscape structures, urban expansion patterns, process, and overall growth status in the towns. The results highlight that all the towns experienced accelerated growth in the built-up areas and highly scattered nature in spatial growth. Landscape ecology analysis confirmed a highly fragmented urban landscape, a significant loss of natural land covers, and disconnected and complicated agro-vegetation patches in all towns, suggesting a lack of rigorous implementation of the master plan. Results also indicated that the Oromia Special Zone surrounding Finfinnee has failed to control urban sprawl to surrounding ecological sensitive areas. The study results, more broadly, highlight that the small cities would have a limited physical and demographic footprint and relatively less contribution to the national economic agglomeration; nonetheless, they can have a notable and important impact in terms of their ecological and environmental influence. Hence, the study suggests policies for monitoring such dynamics and protecting agro-environmental connectivity with particular focus on the small cities.Sustainability 2020, 12, 1235 2 of 19 infrastructure and services. Whereas a compact spatial form can assist in implementing an enhanced transportation system as well as minimize the consumption of traffic energy-efficiency and resource utilization such as water pipe networks and drainage system [6,7]. However, some studies argue that the potential for damage to urban green spaces [8], increased traffic congestion, pollution, and crowded services [9] are notable shortcomings of compacting urban development. Even though there is some controversy regarding spatial growth types, the general agreement is that the urban spatial morphology can determine the social, environmental, and ecological situations of a city. Consequently, exploration of the urban spatial dynamics and landscape structures analysis continues to of interest due to its high importance in creating sustainable cities.Several studies have investigated the effects of urban expansion on the landscape composition and configuration [10][11][12], investigating the existing and projected urban land dynamics [13], and exploring the patterns and possible drivers [...

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confidence: 99%

Urbanization in Small Cities and Their Significant Implications on Landscape Structures: The Case in Ethiopia

et al. 2020

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“…Moreover, the Morogoro urban municipality is part of the Eastern Highlands of East Africa that already experience high soil erosion leading to land degradation (Ernest, Nduganda, and Kashaigili 2017). Furthermore, the vegetation destruction in the Morogoro urban municipality is cited as a major cause of habitat fragmentation and reduction in biodiversity (Kithakye, Mutashubirwa, and Kayani 2009;Sumari, Xu, et al 2019a). The continued destruction of vegetation (forests and woodlands) around the fringes of the Morogoro urban municipality is a threat to achieving SDG 15 (with terminal year 2020), which is focused on protecting, restoring and promoting sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.…”

Section: Impact Of Urban Sprawl On Ecosystem Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, there have been considerable advances in techniques adopted via geospatial technologies that collectively enable urban planners and managers to study and monitor urban conditions and growth, hither to impossible to achieve (Huang, Wang, and Li 2018;Sumari et al 2019a). In addition, the combination of remote sensing and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) have increased the precision with which urban sprawl can be measured and analyzed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban sprawl and its impact on sustainable urban development: a combination of remote sensing and social media data

Shao

Sumari

Portnov

et al. 2020

Geo-spatial Information Science

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178

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Urbanization is one of the most impactful human activities across the world today affecting the quality of urban life and its sustainable development. Urbanization in Africa is occurring at an unprecedented rate and it threatens the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Urban sprawl has resulted in unsustainable urban development patterns from social, environmental, and economic perspectives. This study is among the first examples of research in Africa to combine remote sensing data with social media data to determine urban sprawl from 2011 to 2017 in Morogoro urban municipality, Tanzania. Random Forest (RF) method was applied to accomplish imagery classification and location-based social media (Twitter usage) data were obtained through a Twitter Application Programming Interface (API). Morogoro urban municipality was classified into built-up, vegetation, agriculture, and water land cover classes while the classification results were validated by the generation of 480 random points. Using the Kernel function, the study measured the location of Twitter users within a 1 km buffer from the center of the city. The results indicate that, expansion of the city (built-up land use), which is primarily driven by population expansion, has negative impacts on ecosystem services because pristine grasslands and forests which provide essential ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and support for biodiversity have been replaced by built-up land cover. In addition, social media usage data suggest that there is the concentration of Twitter usage within the city center while Twitter usage declines away from the city center with significant spatial and numerical increase in Twitter usage in the study area. The outcome of the study suggests that the combination of remote sensing, social sensing, and population data were useful as a proxy/inference for interpreting urban sprawl and status of access to urban services and infrastructure in Morogoro, and Africa city where data for urban planning is often unavailable, inaccurate, or stale.

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“…In recent years, it was acknowledged that urban green space (UGS) is crucial to the healthy development of urban residents. UGS that is accessible can benefit residents to an even greater degree [ 17 ]. Urban park space is the main elderly activity space, and elderly people are also the main users of urban parks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a study of the adaptability of activity space in the park for the elderly, to improve the overall benefits of the park, it was necessary to comprehensively understand the activities and selection habits of the elderly, so as to make targeted improvements in the spatial layout and detailed design to meet their needs [ 22 ]. Urban parks are an important component of UGS, so to plan them without an auditory perspective and only accounting for the aesthetic conception is incomplete [ 17 ]. Dance enthusiasts in Guangzhou who like to practice in public parks said that they would obey the city’s pending restrictions on noisy fitness and recreational activities in parks, but they hoped there would not be a total ban on group dancing in public places [ 19 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creating a Healthy Environment for Elderly People in Urban Public Activity Space

Shan

Xiu

2020

IJERPH

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According to statistics, the global, population aging problem is severe and growing rapidly. The aging problem is most obvious in some European countries, and most of them are developed countries, such as Japan, Italy, Germany, France, etc. The current internal and external environments of parks in China are complex. The inefficient utilization of space in urban parks is a prominent problem. The design of public spaces that only considers the visual experience is incomplete. Based on the optimization of urban park space planning principle, this study examined a new measure of the acoustic environment in elderly public activity space and designed a new elderly healthy urban park environment. Methods: Using the main parks in Shenyang (Zhongshan Park, Nanhu Park, Youth Park, and Labor park) as the study sites, this study analyzed problems in the acoustic environmental data through on-site inspection, questionnaire survey, and physical data collection. By using general linear regression and multiple regression methods, this study analyzed the impacts of plant density, site elevation, structure enclosure, functional mixing degree on the acoustic environment, and elderly population activities. Based on the acoustic environment, we propose improvements and construction ideas, as well as technical methods, for urban elderly public activity space planning. The utility of the “elderly public activity space planning principle” was also considered. Results: Elderly activity space in urban parks was affected by three main factors—plant density, degree of structural enclosure, and function mixing degree. These factors should be optimized to construct healthy acoustic environments and attract different types of people. Discussion: Compared to past studies, the new influencing factors of the planning principle for elderly public activity space found in this study, would benefit the urban park environment for the elderly and support sustainable development of cities. Conclusions: This study proposes three optimizations to the elderly urban park space planning principle and builds four healthy models of elderly urban space activity.

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A Geospatial Approach to Sustainable Urban Planning: Lessons for Morogoro Municipal Council, Tanzania

Cited by 25 publications

References 43 publications

Urbanization in Small Cities and Their Significant Implications on Landscape Structures: The Case in Ethiopia

Urbanization in Small Cities and Their Significant Implications on Landscape Structures: The Case in Ethiopia

Urban sprawl and its impact on sustainable urban development: a combination of remote sensing and social media data

Creating a Healthy Environment for Elderly People in Urban Public Activity Space

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