LAND SUITABILITY ASSESSMENT FOR URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN SOKOTO METROPOLIS, SOKOTO STATE, NIGERIA
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.2Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The evaluation of suitability of land areas for a variety of land use for development purposes solely rely on terrain information. Studies have shown that there are only a few landscapes remaining on earth that are still in their natural state (Gardner and Kloptak, 2001). The earth surface is being continuously altered in some manners due to anthropogenic activities and man‘s influence on the fragile, yet interconnected resource base. This has had a profound effect on the natural environment, thus resulting into an observable change pattern in the land use and land cover over time (UN-Habitat, 2004).
Urban centers in less developed countries like Nigeria have witnessed tremendous changes in terms of population growth and aerial expansion. In the absence of proper urban management practices, uncontrolled and rapid increase in population pose enormous challenges to governments in providing adequate shelter to the millions of homeless and poor in urban areas. Urban growth due to in-migration has led to increase in population density. The migration of people from rural to urban areas for better job opportunities, better standard of living and higher level of education is expected to continue in coming future. This will lead to shortage of facilities and increasing demand of land for residential purposes (UN-Habitat, 2004).
In the last 200 years, the Earth‘s urban population has increased by over 100 times while the total population has increased only six times (Jain and Subbaiah, 2007).
According to United Nation’s Population Division report, about 38 percent of the earth’s population was living in urban areas and by 2025 this proportion is expected to rise to 61 percent. This implies that about 5 billion people out of a total world population of 8 billion will be living in urban areas (WRI 2010). This rapid increase in urban population accompanied by fast transforming urban economy lead to an ever-increasing load on the urban environment in terms of unplanned sprawl, inadequate housing facilities, traffic congestion, insufficient drainage, and lack of sewerage and other facilities (Liu, 1998).
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LAND SUITABILITY ASSESSMENT FOR URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN SOKOTO METROPOLIS, SOKOTO STATE, NIGERIA
