LAND SUITABILITY FOR RICE CROP FARMING IN KWARA STATE USING GIS-BASED MULTI-CRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS

This study employs GIS-based multi-criteria decision approach to identify suitable areas for cultivating rice crop in Kwara State, Nigeria, using essential climatic, soil, terrain and environmental variables selected based on FAO framework for land evaluation. Weights indicating the relative importance of each variable was determined using Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). The criteria, their weights and constraints were integrated in GIS environment to produce suitability map, classified into five levels of suitability (Very highly suitable, highly suitable, moderately suitable, low suitable and not suitable) using weighted overlay operation. The result indicates that 9.7% (343803.75 ha) of the total land area is unsuitable for cultivating rice while 14.6% (516169.46 ha) is classified as low suitable area. The moderately suitable, highly suitable and very highly suitable classes occupy 30.8% (1091145.20 ha), 40.56% (1436504.55 ha) and 4.4% (154408.94 ha), respectively. Quantitative assessment of the work yields overall accuracy (area under the ROC curve) of 0.97 (97%). Based on the findings of this study, we recommend that the state land use planning agency review zoning mechanism, incorporates grassroot participatory land use planning policy and evaluate suitable land for other essential crops by incorporating GIS in order to sufficiently allocate lands for optimal utilization

The Co-production of Space, Politics and Subjectivities in India’s Urban Peripheries

Introduction In her pathbreaking essay on modes of production of urban space in the global South, anthropologist Teresa Caldeira (2017) deploys the concept of “peripheral urbanization” to conjure “a problem-space that allows us to investigate logics of the production of the urban that differ from those of the North Atlantic … as a means of exploring processes of both socio-spatial formation and theory-making” (p. 4). Along similar lines, in this special issue, we invoke the concept of the per..

Assessment of Urban Dynamics to Understand Spatiotemporal Differentiation at Various Scales Using Remote Sensing and Geospatial Tools

Analysis of urban dynamics is a pivotal step towards understanding landscape changes and developing scientifically sound urban management strategies. Delineating the patterns and processes shaping the evolution of urban regions is an essential part of this step. Utilizing remote-sensing techniques and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools, we performed an integrated analysis on urban expansion in Srinagar city and surrounding areas from 1999 to 2017 at multiple scales in order to assist urban planning initiatives. To capture various spatial indicators of expansion, we analysed (i) land use/land cover (LULC) changes, (ii) rate and intensity of changes to built-up areas, (iii) spatial differentiation in landscape metrics (at 500, 1000 and 2000 m cell-size), and (iv) growth type of the urban expansion. Global Moran’s I statistics and local indicators of spatial association (LISA) were also employed to identify hotspots of change in landscape structure. Our methodology utilizes a range of geovisualization tools which are capable of appropriately addressing various elements required for strategic planning in growing cities. The results highlight aggregation and homogenization of the urban core as well as irregularity and fragmentation in its periphery. A combination of spatial metrics and growth type analysis supports the supposition that there is a continuum in the diffusion-coalescence process. This allows us to extend our understanding of urban growth theory and to report deviations from accepted stages of growth. As our results show, each dominating growth phase of the city—both diffusion (1999) and coalescence (2009 and 2017)—is interspersed with features from the other type. An improved understanding of spatial differentiation and the identification of hotspots can serve to make urban planning more tailored to such local conditions. An important insight derived from the results is the applicability of remote-sensing data in urban planning measures and the usefulness of freely available medium resolution data in gaining a comprehensive understanding of the evolution of cities