Drought and desertification management in arid and semi-arid zones of Northern Nigeria

Purpose: This paper seeks to review the state of desertification in Nigeria, historical trends and past national efforts as well as ongoing programs for combating the fast-spreading desert conditions in the arid zones of the country. Design/methodology/approach: The approach has been carried out through a comprehensive review analysis and detailed assessment on several methods of approach which includes archival materials as well as published government documents, field observation and learned background information of the working and funding dynamics of the program to combat desertification. Findings: The findings of this paper reveal that the failure of the past government effort in combating desertification in Nigeria is a result of the policies and the programs not having been designed to adequately tackle the problem of drought and desertification and of the phenomena being treated as sectoral issues rather than an integrated whole. Practical implications: This paper has practical implication for anyone interested in sustainable management of drought and desertification in the arid and semi arid zones of the world. Originality/value: The paper has articulated success and failure of the government programs in combating the twin environmental problems of drought and desertification in Nigeria and also shows that government could significantly combat desertification through sustainable management of its projects/programs if adequate resources are employed

Centrality assessment of neighbourhood commercial areas in Iskandar Malaysia

Centrality is an indices to evaluate the centralization of the components in a layout plan. Centrality of a component in a neighborhood also has its own influence in residents travel behavior. Centralized component, especially for commercial area also tend to create a center of attraction within the neighborhood. The decentralized commercial area will contribute to extra trip, consequently adding up the travel-induced carbon emission. Thus, this study reveals the current layout design of the selected neighborhood in Iskandar Malaysia in term of the Reach Centrality which is one of centrality measures. This paper aims to identify the distribution pattern of neighborhood commercial areas and assessing their Reach Centrality, RC condition. Using Urban Network Analysis extension for ArcGis 10.1 to run the analysis, result will be presented in graphical images that locate the location of area that have best RC value. Although most of the research that studied Centrality using regional scale, this study used neighborhood scale to give clearer view of current condition in neighborhood layout design. This study reveals that those commercial areas are not located in central location in terms of Reach centrality assessment. This situation currently contributes to the increase of travel carbon emission for local residents

Land use diversity indices and change of mixed land uses in Iskandar Malaysia from 1980s to 2000s

Diversity in the context of land use planning refers to as the variety of uses in land use and in land use planning, the success of diversity can be achieved through mixed use development. Although mixed land uses are popularly practised in mixed use development for the past decades, current land use practices have moved towards the separation of residential and non-residential type of land uses. Thus, this paper discusses the changes in mixed land use from 1980s to 2000s in Iskandar Malaysia, Johor. The study is aimed at identifying the level of land use diversity and its trend during the past few decades by using diversity indices, Simpsons Diversity Index (SDI) and Shannons Diversity Index (ShaDI). The results show that diversity indices have been on the decrease steadily but quicken beyond 2005

Of land use mix, location and travel carbon emission: state of the relationship in neighbourhoods of Iskandar Malaysia

Climate has been changing due to increasing level of greenhouse (GHG) emission from human activities and land use has been identified as one of the major factors. The increasing rate of urbanisation with its sprawl consequences has long been a concern in terms of major source of CO2 emission. Land uses in terms of types, amount and location do have direct and indirect effects on CO2 emission. Aim of this research is to identify the optimal mix and siting of land uses in neighborhoods in Iskandar Malaysia based on the physical layouts of existing neighborhoods. In line with the goal of Iskandar Malaysia to be the first Low Carbon City in Malaysia, this research might help by providing the information needed in order to achieve it. Iskandar Malaysia is chosen for this research because in Iskandar Malaysia it already have three types of mixed uses category but yet no one have measure the level of this mixed use development. This research have selected for about ten neighborhoods developed from 1980s to 2000s ranging from 100-1000 acres as it sample. Assessment and analysis are carried out on several metrics to investigate the relationship between land use mixing, location of land uses and travel carbon emission. CommunityViz an ArcGIS based on scenario planning softwares, is used to compare the impact of various real and hypothetical land use mix scenarios on internal travel and eventually travel carbon emission. The findings seem to indicate that the mixing as well as the location of land uses do affect travel carbon emission greatly. Travel carbon emission is worse in exclusive neighborhoods that cater only for residential uses

The environmental effect of mass housing development in Abuja, Nigeria

This paper is aimed at assessing the effects of mass housing development in Lokogoma district of Abuja Phase II. This study was an inquisition into how mass housing development affects the environment as well as alters the design of the original master plan. The study examines the extent and magnitude on the social, economic and environmental aspect of the communities within the Phase II of the city. The scope of the study covers other areas of mass housing development within the Lokogoma district of the Abuja Phase III and emphasis is placed more on the private estate developers. Data on air quality, water quality, soil quality, vegetation and relief and landform were collected and assessed. A control point of 2km from the study location was picked to aid in the examination of the variation in the natural order. Air quality measurement was conducted using Gassman portable Digital Gas Monitors. Noise pollution test was carried out using a sound level meter. Physical and chemical contaminants in water were measured through water quality test. Other tests were also carried out to examine pollution from soil and vegetation. Impact assessment management matrix analysis was conducted to determine the environmental impacts through the construction of mass housing development. The results of the study revealed that air pollution and deforestation are two environmental problems affecting the study area and are having significant effect on the public health of the residents and causing flooding as well as soil erosion in the study area respectively. Thus, there is the need for urgent intervention from the authorities concerned in order to avoid or control the spread of these problems

Compliance of balanced housing policy in the Philippines: the case of Davao City

The Philippines have quintessentially suffered setbacks in providing the housing needs for the underprivileged and homeless urban poor. The reformist policy through the balanced housing principle of the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) has augured well as a strategy to cope with the socialized housing requirement brought by rapid urbanization. This paper assesses the compliance of balanced housing policy by the State and the private housing developers in the city of Davao. The study explores the mechanisms used by government to ensure compliance and the modalities availed by housign developers, and provide policy recommendation for the efficient implementation and compliance with the policy. Although there was compliance from the private sector, the policy was tweaked which resulting in considerable loss of socialized housing units in Davao City due to ambiguous application of balanced housing policy. Equally significant difficulty for an efficient implementation is the weak administrative mechanisms, causing a failure in the compliance and monitoring aspects, coupled with lack of understanding and the determination to implement the balanced housing policy. Thus, the government of Davao city needs to approach the growing urban homelessness with resolve and urgency thereby accelerating the production of socialized housing through the balanced housing policy

Uncovering the hidden values of wetlands to local communities

The values of wetlands are generally classified into use values and non-use values. The use values are straightforward andmeasurable values but the non-use values are not so. Hence they are most often neglected and not incorporated in wetlands assessment and conversion to other uses by policy makers. Although the wetlands under review are obviously being used for farming and fishing, we attempted establishing from the local users if they have other forms of values for them. We therefore interviewed four hundred and ninety four (494) wetlands users in seventeen riparian local communities in Lokoja, Nigeria. The result of our findings shows that apart from the direct use of the wetlands, other form of uses, the non-use values exists. Bequest value was however dominant among the identified non-use values. Unfortunately this type of value is not usually considered in decision making patterning to wetlands in local communities. We recommend valuation of both the use and non-use values of wetlands in local communities that are being considered for conversion to other uses. This is suggested because the unseen hidden values of wetlands can be uncovered only in a study of this nature

An investigation on the relationship between land use composition and PM10 pollution in Iskandar Malaysia

This paper discusses the relationship between land use composition and the degree of air pollution, specifically PM10, in Iskandar Malaysia. Aspires to be a low carbon region and a smart city, Iskandar Malaysia has to meet the social and economic needs of its growing population while taking care of all the environmental challenges that come with rapid urbanization. The occurrence of regional haze episodes in the past has shrouded this region with particulate matters including PM10, but the major cause of the haze was extensive agricultural open burning rather than land use change. Since there is no doubt land use change itself can be a significant contributor to local PM10 concentration, separating PM10 caused by the local (land use change) source from that of the regional source would enable us to investigate the trend in local PM10 pollution level. Therefore, a study on the Iskandar Malaysia’s PM10 readings for the years 2002, 2006 and 2008 was carried out with the aim to identify the relationship between land use composition and PM10 concentration. The background concentration of the readings was extracted by using the base flow separation process commonly used in the hydrograph study. The extracted background concentration was then interpolated with the Terra MODIS level 2 product to identified the PM10 concentration for the whole Iskandar Malaysia region, spatially. Since data for land use changes are compositional data in nature, where the percentages of different land use coverages always add up to unity, the barycentric or ternary plot had been used to investigate the relationship between PM10 concentrations with the land use composition (urban:agriculture:forest) in Iskandar Malaysia. The results show that air quality as represented by PM10 concentrations are inevitably linked to the land use changes at the local level notwithstanding the more noticeable but intermittent influence of the regional haze episodes. The degree of air pollution is noticeably controlled by the percentage of urban land use with PM10 clearly affected by the size of commercial area

Horizontal coherence in environmental policies of Iskandar Malaysia

To achieve a sustainable development, all related levels and sectors of policy making need to be in line with environmental considerations. Iskandar Malaysia, the second significant regional economic project of Malaysia, in an effort to be recognized as an international standing sustainable development, has formulated its policies in the form of 32 blueprints. Each of these documents targets a specific development aspect. Out of these blueprints, Environmental Planning Blueprint (EPB) aims at ensuring that all aspects of development are environmentally sustainable. This study tried to figure out if other blueprints are in line with principles and guidelines of EPB. Therefore, we selected Livable Neighborhood and Design Guidelines Blueprint (LNDGB) as a sample and assessed its horizontal policy coherence with EPB. Content analysis used as the main method of the assessment. Results showed that LNDGB mostly was coherent with policies of EPB and no serious contradiction found between them. However, LNDGB did not cover all features determined by EPB

Open source GIS application on emergency and evacuation planning for flood disaster through web mapping

Open Source Geographic Information System (OSGIS) has brought a tremendous change to the traditional approaches in digital mapping which has led to the new age of collaboration and provides benefits to the users in term of low cost and tailored made, particularly for those who are in great demand for enhanced decision making support tools. This paper discusses the use of OSGIS software in term of flood emergency response for decision makers. Digital mapping by means of OSGIS offers the potential to contribute to disaster management, specifically in term of the evacuation plan. GIS database was built based on data collected and analyzed from a survey of 390 households which are randomly selected in Segamat flood-prone areas. Evacuation time profiling and conflict point analysis was carried out through QQIS an OSGIS software which is later published using OS cloud computing web mapping browser (QGIS Cloud). Thematic maps showing categories of flood risk and evacuation time can easily be accessed by stakeholders through the web. This will enable decision makers, including the public, to plan for better evacuation planning and emergency response