Urban Expansion and its impact on urban agriculture - remote sensing based change analysis of Kizinga and Mzinga Valley - Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Urban agriculture is a phenomenon that can be observed world-wide, particularly in cities of devel- oping countries. It is contributing significantly to food security and food safety and has sustained livelihood of the urban and peri-urban low income dwe llers in developing countries for many years. Population increase due to rural-urban migration and natural - formal as well as informal - urbani- sation are competing with urban farming for available space and scarce water resources. A mul- titemporal and multisensoral urban change analysis over the period of 25 years (1982-2007) was performed in order to measure and visualise the urban expansion along the Kizinga and Mzinga valley in the south of Dar Es Salaam. Airphotos and VHR satellite data were analysed by using a combination of a composition of anisotropic textural measures and spectral information. The study revealed that unplanned built-up area is expanding continuously, and vegetation covers and agricultural lands decline at a fast rate. The validation showed that the overall classification accuracy varied depending on the database. The extracted built-up areas were used for visual in- terpretation mapping purposes and served as information source for another research project. The maps visualise an urban congestion and expansion of nearly 18% of the total analysed area that had taken place in the Kizinga valley between 1982 and 2007. The same development can be ob- served in the less developed and more remote Mzinga valley between 1981 and 2002. Both areas underwent fast changes where land prices still tend to go up and an influx of people both from rural and urban areas continuously increase the density with the consequence of increasing multiple land use interests.

Classifying and mapping the urban transition in Vietnam

The urban transition almost always involves wrenching social adjustment as small agricultural communities are forced to adjust rapidly to industrial ways of life. Large-scale in-migration of young people, usually from poor regions, creates enormous demand and expectations for community and social services. One immediate problem planners face in approaching this challenge is how to define, differentiate, and map what is rural, urban, and transitional (i.e., peri-urban). This project established an urban classification for Vietnam by using national census and remote sensing data to identify and map the smallest administrative units for which data are collected as rural, peri-urban, urban, or urban core. We used both natural and human factors in the quantitative model: income from agriculture, land under agriculture and forests, houses with modern sanitation, and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. Model results suggest that in 2006, 71% of Vietnam's 10,891 communes were rural, 18% peri-urban, 3% urban, and 4% urban core. Of the communes our model classified as peri-urban, 61% were classified by the Vietnamese government as rural. More than 7% of Vietnam's land area can be classified as peri-urban and approximately 13% of its population (more than 11 million people) lives in peri-urban areas. We identified and mapped three types of peri-urban places: communes in the periphery of large towns and cities; communes along highways; and communes associated with provincial administration or home to industrial, energy, or natural resources projects (e.g., mining). We validated this classification based on ground observations, analyses of multi-temporal night-time lights data, and an examination of road networks. The model provides a method for rapidly assessing the rural–urban nature of places to assist planners in identifying rural areas undergoing rapid change with accompanying needs for investments in building, sanitation, road infrastructure, and government institutions.

Urban expansion and its impact on urban agriculture – remote sensing based change analysis of Kizinga and Mzinga Valley – Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Urban agriculture is a phenomenon that can be observed world-wide, particularly in cities of devel-oping countries. It is contributing significantly to food security and food safety and has sustained livelihood of the urban and peri-urban low income dwellers in developing countries for many years. Population increase due to rural-urban migration and natural, coupled with formal as well as infor-mal urbanization are competing with urban farming for available space and scarce water resources. A multitemporal multisensoral urban change analysis over the period of 25 years (1982-2007) was performed in order to measure and visualize the urban expansion along the Kizinga and Mzinga valley in the South of Dar es Salaam. Airphotos and VHR satellite data were analyzed by using a combination of a composition of anisotropic textural measures and spectral information. The study revealed that unplanned built-up area is expanding continuously and vegetation covers and agricultural lands decline at a fast rate. The validation showed that the overall classification accuracy varied depending on the database. The extracted built-up areas were used for visual in-terpretation mapping purposes and served as information source for another research project. The maps visualize an urban congestion and expansion of nearly 18% of the total analyzed area that had taken place in the Kizinga valley between 1982 and 2007. The same development can be ob-served in the less developed and more remote Mzinga valley between 1981 and 2002. Both areas underwent fast changes where land prices still tend to go up and an influx of people both from rural and urban areas continuously increase density with the consequence of increasing multiple land use interests.

Fostering sustainable urban development in Nakuru, Kenya Rift Valley

The town of Nakuru—Kenya's fourth largest town—lies in a unique setting in the Great Rift Valley. Recent developments on the Menengai Crater, the Mau Escarpment, and the Bahati Highlands exemplify the impacts of poorly planned urban growth on mountain ecosystems. The Nakuru Local Urban Observatory (LUO) project was initiated by the Municipal Council of Nakuru in January 2003, in collaboration with the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) of the University of Berne and the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), and with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The project aims to provide a framework for sustainable urban development practices by building technical skills and improving participation by local stakeholders in decision-making processes. The potentials of information technology (IT) are being tapped to provide up-to-date information to decision-makers and democratize access to information, in order to improve public participation. The overall objective is to find ways of achieving better urban management in order to mitigate non-sustainable development trends in the town and its surroundings.

Land system science and sustainable development of the earth system: A global land project perspective

Land systems are the result of human interactions with the natural environment. Understanding the drivers, state, trends and impacts of different land systems on social and natural processes helps to reveal how changes in the land system affect the functioning of the socio-ecological system as a whole and the tradeoff these changes may represent. The Global Land Project has led advances by synthesizing land systems research across different scales and providing concepts to further understand the feedbacks between social-and environmental systems, between urban and rural environments and between distant world regions. Land system science has moved from a focus on observation of change and understanding the drivers of these changes to a focus on using this understanding to design sustainable transformations through stakeholder engagement and through the concept of land governance. As land use can be seen as the largest geo-engineering project in which mankind has engaged, land system science can act as a platform for integration of insights from different disciplines and for translation of knowledge into action.

Constructing, Creating and Contesting Cityscapes. A Socio-Anthropological Approach to Urban Transformation in Southern Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China

This manuscript is based on a PhD thesis submitted at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Bern in 2014. The dissertation was part of the research project „Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Chinese Territoriality. The Development of Infrastructure and Han Migration into the Region“ under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Heinzpeter Znoj and financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF. Madlen Kobi analyzes the architectural and socio-political transformation of public places and spaces in rapidly urbanizing southern Xinjiang, P.R. China, and in doing so pays particular attention to the cities of Aksu and Kaxgar. As the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region lies in between China and Central Asia, it is especially characterized by differing political, cultural, and religious influences, and, furthermore, due to its being a multiethnic region, by multiple identities. One might expect cultural and social identities in this area to be negotiated by referring to history, religion, or food. However, they also become visible by the construction and reconstruction, if not demolition, of public places, architectural landmarks, and private residences. Based on ethnographic fieldwork performed in 2011 and 2012, the study explores everyday life in a continuously transforming urban environment shaped by the interaction of the interests of government institutions, investment companies, the middle class, and migrant workers, among many other actors. Here, urban planning, modernization, and renewal form a highly sensitive lens through which the author inspects the tense dynamics of ethnic, religious, and class-based affiliations. She respects varieties and complexities while thoroughly grounding unfolding transformation processes in everyday lived experiences. The study provides vivid insights into how urban places and spaces in this western border region of China are constructed, created, and eventually contested.