Spatio‐temporal assessment of urban growth of medium‐size and nodal towns for sustainable management: using GIS

Abstract

Purpose

Urban growth has increasingly drawn much attention of erudite scholars due to its central role in achieving a sustainable urbanization. Despite this awareness, studies on urban growth have continued to dwell on the traditional method of presenting geographical Information, which has proved to be slow and inadequate. The purpose of this paper is to adopt a Geographical Information System (GIS) in assessing the spatial pattern and the physical planning problems associated with the expansion of Ore township between 1964 and 2002. Moreover, the study tends to serve as baseline study for subsequent studies on medium‐sized and nodal towns.

Design/methodology/approach

The study utilized data from secondary sources such as Landsat‐TM, February, 1986, Landsat ETM+, December, 2002; Topographical map of Ore 1964 and population census data of Ore 1991. The study employed ILWIS Academic 3.2 GISsoftware to process the imageries. Coordinates extracted from the topographical map in UTM were used to georeference the enhanced and filtered images upon which supervised classification was performed, followed by error matrix operation and ground truthing to ensure high level accuracy. This results in six domains, namely, built‐up, forest reserve, farmland, secondary forest roads and water bodies, which were analyzed on temporal basis. Predictive model was used.

Findings

The study found that Ore township occupied an area of 1.2 km² in 1964, expanded to 11.3 km² in 1986 and 13.2 km² in 2002 respectively. The prediction showed a possible expansion of 55.33 km² by 2027. The results further revealed physical planning problems generated by these expansions – housing, inadequate waste disposal system, encroachment into agricultural lands, inadequate health facilities and poor drainage system. From field survey, 62 percent of 125 residential housing units sampled disposed refuse themselves, while 20 percent have no organized refuse collection and 18 percent dispose through other means. This suggests the vulnerability of inhabitants to health risks and environment problems.

Practical implications

Urban growth data are useful in evaluating environmental impacts, delineating growth boundaries, developing land use zoning plans and estimating the expansion rate of a town to advise the government towards proper planning and distribution of utilities. These can be achieved through the adoption of GIS approaches to information gathering and analysis for regular monitoring and evaluation of development plans. Although it is capital intensive, it is worthwhile.

Originality/value

The use of GIS and remotely‐sensed data integrated with population census data and topographical map data has demonstrated the capability inherent in the new tools, GIS and remote sensing, to generate to some extent base line data for the town planners, in order to proactively channel the urban development in an appropriate direction, particularly the medium‐sized and nodal towns that are somewhat neglected.

Citation

Aguda, A.S., Farinde, T.A., Adegboyega, S.A. and Olawole, M.O. (2013), "Spatio‐temporal assessment of urban growth of medium‐size and nodal towns for sustainable management: using GIS", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 94-106. https://doi.org/10.1108/14777831311291159