Urbanisation Footprints and the Distribution of Air Quality in Nairobi City, Kenya

Various postulations on the relationship between urban morphology and air quality are qualitative. This fails to establish the strength of the contributions of each morphological parameter in the spatial distribution of the air quality. It is this gap in knowledge that this study sought to fill by modelling the correlation existing between the urban morphological variables of development density, land uses, biomass index and air quality values of Nairobi city. While 30 development zones of the city constituted the target population, IKONOS satellite imagery of the city for the year 2015 was utilised in establishing the development densities, land uses and biomass index. The parameters were transformed into numerical surrogates ranging from 1 to 10 with lower values accorded to zones with low biomass index, the highest development density, noxious land uses, high gaseous concentrations and vice-versa. Pearson’s correlation coefficients (r), coefficients of determination (R), t-tests and the Analysis of Variance (F-tests) with levels of significance being 95% were used to determine the strengths, significances and consistencies of the established relationships. The study established that development density is the most significant morphological variable influencing the distribution of air quality. This is followed by biomass index and to a weaker extent, land uses

The Imperatives in Mainstreaming Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Urban Management Practices: African Perspectives

This paper is anchored on argument that cities contribute to global warming and climate change through the interaction of the urban morphological factors notably; the development density, distribution of land uses, building configuration, nature of the construction materials used in the city and the amount of vegetation within the city, the utility of public transportation, vehicular traffic volume, industrialisation and energy consumption in the city, all of which influence the occurrence of urban heat island effects and greenhouse gas emissions to compromise  the air quality and surface temperatures. Therefore, urbanisation is a significant factor contributing to global warming and climate change, leading to heightened drought and flood prevalence, heat waves, sea level rise, increased pest invasions, disease incidences, food insecurity and occurrences of extreme weather events. This is likely to lead to population displacement with the hosts being urban centres already experiencing infrastructure inadequacies. Experience from Africa corroborate that mitigation and adaptation to climate change is a challenge at the urban level due to socioeconomic conditions accentuated by insufficient regional and national assistance rendered to urban authorities. The paper therefore annunciates the African urban climate change mitigation and adaptation scenarios and further discuss the challenges the nations and cities in Africa face in mainstreaming climate change in the national urbanization agenda. To anchor the arguments and to propose strategies for mainstreaming climate change in the urban sustainability agenda, concise review of literature and policy documents on climate change as informed by the urban management practices in Africa is undertaken

Kenya's Experience Towards Sustainable Human Settlements Delivery in Africa

Due to limited resources and for purposes of economic growth, some degree of concentration of activities and people inparticular places are deemed to be economically and technically vital for purposes of development planning. Such concentrationsof people and activities range from small villages, towns, municipalities to large cities and metropolis otherwise aggregatedas human settlements. However, it is imperative that well-articulated and proactive planning praxes have to be enacted forposterity and environmental harmony in the human settlements. As such, diverse sets of praxes to the human settlementdevelopment have evolved at different epochs in Kenyan history. The praxes are divergent in timing, scope and forms. Allthese have acted in concert to manifest dynamism in the human settlement development. On the one hand , conventionaldevelopment planning practice has not been able to cope with the pace of urban development and hence the emergence ofsprawling informal urban settlements in many of Africa's cities, Kenya included. On the other hand development planningpractice has not been ablle to cope with the pace of urban development and hence the emergence of sprawling informalsettlements in many of Africa's cities, Kenya included. This experience forms the context of this paper and progress further bydetailing in-depth strategies for attaining sustainable human settlement development in the light of informal settlements. KEY WORDS: Human Settlement, Sustainable Development, Urbanization, Growth Centres, Service Centres and Strategies Résumé En raison des ressources très limitées et aux fins de stimuler la croissance économique, une certaine concentration desactivités et de la population dans des endroits bien précis s'avère nécessaire puisque ces derniers sont appelés à jouer unrôle économiquement et techniquement vital dans la planification du développement. De telles concentrations de lapoupulation et d'activités partent des petits villages, des villes, des municipalités, de grandes villes jusqu'aux métropolesqui hébergent de grandes agglomérations humaines. Il est cependant impérieux que des actions bien articulées et proactivesen matière de planification soient officiellement décrétées pour faciliter leur validité postérieure et leur harmonieenvironnementale au sein des agglomérations humaines. En tant que tels, divers ensembles d'initiatives déstinés audéveloppement de l'habitat humain ont vu le jour à différentes époques, dans l'histoire du Kenya. Ces initiatives quidivergent quant à leur synchronisation, leur portée et leurs formes ont toutes servi à refléter le dynamisme dudéveloppement de l'agglomération humaine. Ainsi donc, les pratiques de planification du développement n'ont pas pu seconformer à l'allure du développement urbain et elles ont dans certains cas, conduit à une pullulation des agglomérationsspontanées dans des cités africaines, y compris le Kenya. Cet article part d'abord de l'expérience et des progrès enregistrés,pour ensuite déboucher aux stratégies détaillées qui peuvent donner lieu à un développement harmonieux et durable del'habitat humain, à la lumière de l'apparition des agglomérations spontanées. Mots-clés: habitat humain, développement durable, urbanisation, centres en plein essor, centres de fourniture des services, StrategiesDiscovery and Innovation Volume 15 Number1/2 June (2003) pp. 28-3