Browsing by Author "Ujoh, Fanan"

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A Geospatial Approach to Sustainable Urban Planning: Lessons for Morogoro Municipal Council, Tanzania
(Sustainability, 2019-11-19) Sumari, Neema S.; Xu, Gang; Ujoh, Fanan; Korah, Prosper I.; Ebohon, Obas J.; Lyimo, Neema N
Sustainable urban planning is essential in mediating the natural and built environments globally, yet, there is little progress as regards its attainment in developing countries. Rapid and unplanned urbanization continue to threaten the sustainability of many cities in Africa. By selecting Morogoro Municipal Council (MMC) in Tanzania as an example, this study applied well-known remote sensing techniques to understand the dynamics of urban growth and the implications for sustainable urban planning. The study analyzes spatio-temporal characteristics for eighteen years (2000–2018) based on urban land density using gradient and grid-based analysis to further examine land use and urban land density nexus. The results indicate declining urban land densities with distance to the city center, indicating a less compact and fragmented development at the urban fringes; and northward development with limited development to the south of MCC. The knowledge and understanding of the patterns of spatio-temporal conditions, land use planning, and management interventions in MMC are necessary for addressing the inadequacies associated with rapid urbanization within the study area. On this basis, we propose a shift from the modernist to the communicative planning strategy that strongly integrates the urban social, economic, and environmental imperatives, while being adaptable to evolving realities. This plan should also aim to curtail urban sprawl and create a viable city system and economically prosperous city structure for MMC.
On the absurdity of rapid urbanization: Spatio-temporal analysis of land-use changes in Morogoro, Tanzania
(Cities, 2020-07-07) Sumari, Neema S.; Cobbinah, Patrick Brandful; Ujoh, Fanan; Xu, Gang
This study questions the frequent overemphasis on population growth aspects of African urbanization with little consideration of the spatial extent by analyzing the influence of population growth on the spatial expansion of the Morogoro urban municipality (MUM) in Tanzania between 2000 and 2016. Shannon's Entropy, a random forest supervised classifier, and spatial analysis were adopted to analyze Multi-temporal Landsat images obtained through the Google Earth Engine platform to quantify the spatial and temporal distribution and pattern of land-use change. Findings from this research show that Shannon's entropy values for MUM increased from 0.522 in 2000, to 0.761 in 2007, and to 0.901 in 2016 with the urban land cover recording a considerable and consistent increase. Similarly, the municipality's annual rate of change in population decreased from 4.17% in 1967 to 3.81% in 2016, and is estimated to rise to 4.54% by 2030 with a corresponding population of 25,262 in 1967 and 622,000 in 2016. From the results, the rate of population growth is not commensurate with the rate of spatial expansion, as the spatial extent is more than twice the population growth. An important contribution from this research relates to the limited attention to the faster rate of urban expansion compared to population growth in African cities; a situation that is inconsistent with sustainable and resilient urban futures. It is recommended that municipal authorities should consider initiatives (e.g., environmental planning models) to reverse the current trend of urban growth in order to improve the health, density, sustainability and resilience of the urban environment.
Status of geoinformatics education and training in Sub-Saharan Africa: initiatives taken and challenges
(2019-03-11) Sumari, Neema S.; Shao, Zhenfeng; Van Genderen, John L.; Musakwa, Walter; Ujoh, Fanan; Washaya, Prosper; Gumbo, Trynos
This paper presents an update on some of the activities that have taken place since aWorld Bank report; “Guidelines for Education and Training in Environmental Information Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: Some Key Issues” was published and provides details on the current situation. It shows how organizations such as the African Association on Remote Sensing of Environment, International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, European Association of Remote Sensing Companies, Group on Earth Observation, and several others have helped to increase manpower resources in the region and strengthened institutional capacity in the field of geoinformatics, through capacity building, technology transfer, international cooperation and the provision of internal African resources. After reviewing what has happened in the field of geoinformatics education and training, we focused on current initiatives taken and challenges in five Sub-Saharan countries: Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. We reviewed GIS education and training in the private sector, government, information communications technology in higher education institutions, GIS application areas and challenges facing GIS education and training. Findings show that; change should involve education stakeholders in all levels of education and curriculum quality, regional and international cooperation through exchange programs, should be a priority for Sub-Saharan Africa countries.
Urban growth dynamics and expansion forms in 11 Tanzanian cities from 1990 to 2020
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2023) Sumari, Neema Simon; Ujoh, Fanan; Swai, Calvin Samwel; Zheng, Muchen
With rapid urban expansion across Tanzania, there is a need to institute steps to address factors and forms as well as impacts and challenges associated with the observed trend. This study’s aim is to use spatial urban landscape indices to analyze the spatial changes in urban forms, patterns, and rates across 11 urban centers in Tanzania over a 30-year study period (1990–2020). During the past three decades, urban lands of 11 cities and town in Tanzania have grown by a total of 480 km 2 . Leapfrog growth was found as the most dominant form of urban expansion in Tanzania while Dodoma, the capital city of Tanzania, had the highest rate of urban expansion when compared to all other individual cities. The most robust and significant interaction of the AWMLEI and MLEI was found in Kigoma, Arusha, Mtwara, Mafinga, and Tunduma cities. In contrast, Mbeya agricultural city, Arusha the tourist city, Tabora, and Geita Lake zone areas did show their own peculiarities revealing an interesting spatial temporal variation in rate and form of expansion. The outcome of this study reveals that the influence and management of economic and socio-cultural opportunities will be an effective tool for the determination of the rapidly expanding cities and towns of Tanzania.
Urban sprawl and its impact on sustainable urban development: a combination of remote sensing and social media data
(Geo-spatial Information Science, 2020-07-28) Shao, Zhenfeng; Sumari, Neema S.; Portnov, Aleksei; Ujoh, Fanan; Musakwa, Walter; Mandela, Paulo J.
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.