Managing Emerging Land use Pattern in Developing Nations: A Focus on ONDO, Nigeria
Abstract
The study assesses the urban expansion and landuse pattern of Ondo Township between 1986 and 2014. It also carried out intensive analysis of the urban land use and land cover types between the study period and identified the major factors contributing to the rapid expansion of the township. The study made use of primary and secondary data sets. The primary data sets include field observations for developing image -to-ground concordance, GPS data of 100 points of interest. The secondary data sets include Landsat imageries of 1986, 2002 and 2014, topographic map at scale 1:50000 covering the study area. The imageries of 1986, 2002 and 2014 were processed using the ENVI software. Supervised classification employing the maximum likelihood algorithm was carried out on each imagery. Furthermore, relevant urban expansion parameters including Land Consumption Rate (LCR) and the Land Absorption Coefficient (LAC) were computed while spatial overlay of the built -up areas of 1986, 2002 and 2014 were performed. The study also determined the average rate of expansion between 1986 and 2014. The result shows that Ondo town has expanded at a very fast rate increasing in surface area from 1324.96 ha in 1986 to 1743.48 ha in 2002 and 3444.64 ha in 2014 giving an expansion rate of 3.9% per annum. The land consumption rates for 1986, 2002 and 2014 are respectively 1.4%, 1.2% and 1.0 indicating a progressive compactness in the built -up area of the town. The residential landuse (built -up) area gained and colonized the adjoining vegetation areas i n each period. The study concluded that Ondo urban has been expanding radially outwards from urban Centre. The study recommends proper monitoring of urban area, development of small towns around city area to reduce people migrating to urban centre and effective urban land use management in the city centre.
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Introduction
Urbanization in Nigeria is characterized by a large number of social and physical problems. These include overcrowding, inadequate housing, disjointed physical growth, pollution, unregulated sewage and drainage system inadequate infrastructural facilities and their incessant failures, urban poverty and insecurity. However, Nigerian urban centers also have attractive characteristics such as pipe-borne water, electricity, educational institution, good health facilities, intra-city linkage; industrial and commercial activity that provide industrial products for good living and leisure, small and medium scale industries as well as government establishment which create employment and job opportunities, among others (Oyinloye, 2003 and Ajaegbu, 1994). These characteristics stimulate urban growth and development leading to rapid urban expansion. Studies shows that the magnitude and rate of urban expansion is alarming, as population in developing-country cities is expected to double in the next thirty years from 2 billion in 2000 to almost 4 billion in 2030 (UN, 2004). Similarly, Angel et al. (2005) in their study estimated that cities with populations in excess of 100,000 contained 1.7 billion people in 2000. The size and scale of urban population growth and the concomitant urban land-use change pose major challenges to local and regional ecosystems and ultimately the global environment (Grimm et al. 2008; Seto et al., 2010). Population growth is one of the most important driving forces of change in any urban system. If urban population swells, the city must expand upward or outward. Along with economic development and technologies (mainly transport and communication) revolution, rapid urban growth can be characterized by the development of suburban expansion and new development in the city center.
Since land use and land cover change is a major factor for global change because of its interactions with climate, ecosystem processes, biogeochemical cycles, biodiversity and even more important, human activities (L´opez et al., 2001). Land use land cover change researches have become an important aspect of global change studies in recent decades, much more attention has been paid to urban land use land cover change in the last couple of decades, because ecosystems in urban areas are strongly affected by human activities and have close relations with the life of almost half of the world’s population.
Over the years, remote sensing has been used for land use/land cover mapping, Accurate and up-to-date land cover change information is necessary to understand, assess and monitor the environmental consequences of land cover changes of an area. (Jesuleye, 2012). Remote sensing techniques and the availability of free to less expensive data sources of satellite imagery and their temporal frequency has greatly enhanced the potential for monitoring urban growth, urban land use dynamics and urbanization (Cabral, 2011).
Remote sensing (RS) and Geographic information system (GIS) are now providing new tools for advanced ecosystem management. The collection of a remotely sensed data facilitates the synoptic analysis of earth- system function, patterning, and change at local, regional and global scales over time; such data also provide an important link between intensive, localized ecological research and regional, national and international conservation and management of biological diversity (Jesuleye 2012; Wilkie & Finn, 1996).In view of this, this study assesses the urban expansion and land use pattern of Ondo Township between 1986 and 2014. It also carried out intensive analysis of the urban land use and land cover types between the study period and identified the major factors contributing to the rapid expansion of the township.
The aim of this study therefore is to assess the urban expansion and land use pattern of Ondo between1986 and 2014 with a view to suggesting urban landuse management strategies for the third word cities. The objectives are to:
(i) Examine the land extent of the study area in the years 1986, 2000 and 2014;
(ii) Assess the different land use land cover of the study area at this periods interval;
(iii) Examine the urban expansion of the study area between 1986 and 2014 using Landsat data sets;
(iv) Analysis and determine urban land use and land cover change between the periods of study.
Conclusion
This study has demonstrated the relevance of geographic information science and remote sensing to urban planning, revealing the techniques that can be used to improve the understanding of phenomena of change and contributing to the process of decision making for urban planners so as to foresee or reduce the risk of urban sprawl, slums and environmental degradation and also contributed to the development of strategy for improving sustainable urban land management in Nigeria. This analytical method is found to be efficient and reliable to investigate the trend of urban expansion and to predict the urban expansion as well as identifying the driving forces contributing to the expansion of Ondo urban. Spatial information is the most effective way of describing events over space and time. In this study, Ondo urban was examined using time series geo-spatial data which were processed and analyzed using ENVI and Arc Map software.
The aim of every research is to provide scientific basis, which can be used to solve human, environmental and societal problems. The study therefore advances some recommendations to enhance the functionality of Ondo and reduce its social problems as revealed by this study. First there is need to control urban spread out to agricultural land as this will have serious repercussion on food production. Secondly, there is need for mainstreaming the process of master plan preparation that will guide and engender an efficient and integrated landuse development of Ondo urban area. Lastly, urban landuse/ land cover of Ondo needs to be assessed from time to time. Effort should be made to adopt and maximize the optimum use of GIS and Remote sensing techniques especially in planning stages and monitoring urban areas.