The Use of Remote Sensing and GIS for Monitoring Urban Growth: The Case of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
[Thesis]
Boakye, Lucas
Gala, DrTekleab S
Chicago State University
2019
56 p.
M.A.
Chicago State University
2019
Rapid Addis Ababa Urbanization and subsequent socio-economic and environmental impacts, on the surrounding Oromia zone, are causing massive political instability. The instability has drawn attentions of international human right agencies as well as country's politicians. The objectives of this study are 1) to use remotely sensed Landsat satellite data to identify, quantify, delineate and map the Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) types of Addis Ababa and the surrounding Oromia zones and 2) analyze patterns of changes from 1985 and 2017. Segment-based supervised image classification was used to map LULC types consisting of Agriculture, Grass/Bare land, Lakes/Ponds, Scrublands, Settlement or Urban Areas, Vegetation and Wetlands for 1985, 2003 and 2017 images, with overall accuracies and kappa ranging between 84% and 87.6% and 94.4%; respectively. Agriculture is still the dominant LULC type, though the compositions of the remaining LULC types have changed since 1985; except for Lakes/Ponds, and Wetlands. The Settlement/Urban LULC type has grown by 546% at the expenses of agricultural and vegetation areas, risking wellbeing of farmers due to the loss of farmland. Additionally, the changes were characterized by transformation of Agricultural lands into Grass/Bare lands and Scrublands, indicating the environmental impacts of urbanization. With one of the world highest fertility rate and massive rural-to-urban migration, Addis Ababa urbanization is likely to continue for unforeseen future. It is therefore, critical adapt sustainable urban planning for Addis Ababa, which involves consideration of Compact city, Secondary Cities, and Edge city design.