scholarly journals The Risk Atlas of Mexico City, Mexico: A Tool for Decision-Making and Disaster Prevention

Author(s):  
David A. Novelo-Casanova ◽  
Gerardo Suárez ◽  
Enrique Cabral-Cano ◽  
Enrique A. Fernández-Torres ◽  
Oscar A. Fuentes-Mariles ◽  
...  

Abstract We present a Geographical-Information-System-based Risk Atlas (GIS-RA) of Mexico City, Mexico. The main purposes are to provide a local-government level tool for implementing preventive and remedial actions useful for land-use development plans and to strengthen the culture for disaster prevention. We identified the prevalent social risk to the more relevant hazards in Mexico City (CDMX): earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, landslides, forest fires, and land subsidence. A total of 274 shape-file maps were generated in this project. Seismic hazard was estimated for return periods (RP) of 20, 125, 250, and 475 years. Three areas in central and northwestern CDMX were identified along the Younger Chichinautzin Monogenetic Volcanic Field with high probability of forming a new volcano. Subsidence is concentrated to the east and southeast of CDMX, where subsidence rates are among the highest worldwide. Flooding events were estimated for RP of 2, 5, 10, 50 and 100 years and the majority of them are concentrated in the central and northern sectors of the city. During the dry season (December-April), southern CDMX has very high probability of forest fire occurrence. There is high susceptibility of landslides on the west and southwest of the city. The goals of this GIS-RA are to: 1) improve the knowledge of the potential impact of local hazards; 2) provide elements for disaster prevention, mitigation, preparedness, and response; 3) benefit decision-makers with robust risk data; 4) provide information for land-use planning; and 5) support further research to reduce the impact of disasters.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Novelo-Casanova ◽  
Gerardo Suárez ◽  
Enrique Cabral-Cano ◽  
Enrique A. Fernández-Torres ◽  
Oscar A. Fuentes-Mariles ◽  
...  

AbstractWe present a Risk Atlas of Mexico City based on a Geographical Information System (RA-GIS). We identified the prevalent social risk to the more relevant hazards in Mexico City (CDMX): earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, landslides, forest fires, and land subsidence. A total of 274 shape-file maps were generated in this project. Seismic hazard was estimated for return periods (RP) of 20, 125, 250, and 475 years. Three areas in central and northwestern CDMX were identified along the Younger Chichinautzin Monogenetic Volcanic Field with a high probability of forming a new volcano. Subsidence is concentrated to the east and southeast of CDMX, where subsidence rates are among the highest worldwide. Flooding events were estimated for RP of 2, 5, 10, 50, and 100 years, and most of them are concentrated in the central and northern sectors of the city. During the dry season (December–April), southern CDMX has very high probability of forest fire occurrence. There is high susceptibility of landslides on the west and southwest of the city. The goals of this RA-GIS are to provide a tool to the local and federal authorities and all organizations responsible for disaster prevention and mitigation to: (1) improve the knowledge of the potential physical and social impact of local hazards; (2) provide elements for disaster prevention, mitigation, preparedness, and response; (3) benefit decision-makers with robust risk data; (4) provide information for land-use planning; and (5) support further research to reduce the impact of disasters caused by natural phenomena.


2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Lubida ◽  
Mozafar Veysipanah ◽  
Petter Pilesjo ◽  
Ali Mansourian

Land-use planning, which requires finding a balance among different conflicting social, economic and environment factors, is a complex task needed everywhere, including Africa. One example is the city of Zanzibar in Tanzania, which is under special consideration for land-use revision. From one side, the city has high potentials for tourist industry and at the other side there are major challenges with the city structure and poor accessibilities. In order to prepare a proper land-use plan for the city, a variety of influencing conflicting factors needs to be considered and satisfied. This can be regarded as a common problem in many African cities, which are under development. This paper aims to address the problem by proposing and demonstrating the use of Geographical Information System (GIS) and multi-objective optimization for land-use planning, in Zanzibar as a case study. The measures which have been taken by Zanzibar government to address the development challenges through the Zanzibar Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (ZSGRP) were identified by studying related documents and interviewing experts. Based on these, two objective functions were developed for land-use planning. Optimum base land-use plans were developed and mapped by optimizing the objective functions using the NSGA-II algorithm. The results show that the proposed approach and outputs can considerably facilitate land-use planning in Zanzibar. Similar approaches are highly recommended for other cities in Africa which are under development.


Soil Research ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Vogeler ◽  
Rogerio Cichota ◽  
Josef Beautrais

Investigation of land-use and management changes at regional scales require the linkage of farm-system models with land-resource information, which for pastoral systems includes forage supply. The New Zealand Land Resource Inventory (NZLRI) and associated Land Use Capability (LUC) database include estimates of the potential stock-carrying capacity across the country, which can be used to derive estimates of average annual pasture yields. Farm system models and decision support tools, however, require information on the seasonal patterns of pasture growth. To generate such pasture growth curves (PGCs), the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) was used, with generic soil profiles based on descriptions of LUC classes, to generate PGCs for three regions of New Zealand. Simulated annual pasture yields were similar to the estimates of annual potential pasture yield in the NZLRI spatial database, and they provided information on inter-annual variability. Simulated PGCs generally agreed well with measured long-term patterns of seasonal pasture growth. The approach can be used to obtain spatially discrete estimates of seasonal pasture growth patterns across New Zealand for use in farm system models and for assessing the impact of management practices and climate change on the regional sustainability.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-91
Author(s):  
Bhanu Priya Chouhan ◽  
Monika Kannan

The world is undergoing the largest wave of urban growth in history. More than half of the world’s population now lives in towns and cities, and by 2030 this number will swell to about 5 billion. ‘Urbanization has the potential to usher in a new era of wellbeing, resource efficiency and economic growth. But due to increased population the pressure of demand also increases in urban areas’ (Drakakis-Smith, David, 1996). The loss of agricultural land to other land uses occasioned by urban growth is an issue of growing concern worldwide, particularly in the developing countries like India. This paper is an attempt to assess the impact of urbanization on land use and land cover patterns in Ajmer city. Recent trends indicate that the rural urban migration and religious significance of the place attracting thousands of tourists every year, have immensely contributed in the increasing population of city and is causing change in land use patterns. This accelerating urban sprawl has led to shrinking of the agricultural land and land holdings. Due to increased rate of urbanization, the agricultural areas have been transformed into residential and industrial areas (Retnaraj D,1994). There are several key factors which cause increase in population here such as Smart City Projects, potential for employment, higher education, more comfortable and quality housing, better health facilities, high living standard etc. Population pressure not only directly increases the demand for food, but also indirectly reduces its supply through building development, environmental degradation and marginalization of food production (Aldington T, 1997). Also, there are several issues which are associated with continuous increase in population i.e. land degradation, pollution, poverty, slums, unaffordable housing etc. Pollution, formulation of slums, transportation congestion, environmental hazards, land degradation and crime are some of the major impacts of urbanization on Ajmer city. This study involves mapping of land use patterns by analyzing data and satellite imagery taken at different time periods. The satellite images of year 2000 and 2017 are used. The change detection techniques are used with the help of Geographical Information System software like ERDAS and ArcGIS. The supervised classification of all the three satellite images is done by ERDAS software to demarcate and analyze land use change.


Author(s):  
Андрій Юрійович Шелестов ◽  
Алла Миколаївна Лавренюк ◽  
Богдан Ялкапович Яйлимов ◽  
Ганна Олексіївна Яйлимова

Ukraine is an associate member of the European Union and in the coming years it is expected that all data and services already used by EU countries will be available to Ukraine. The lack of quality national products for assessing the development and planning of urban growth makes it impossible to assess the impact of cities on the environment and human health. The first steps to create such products for the cities of Ukraine were initiated within the European project "SMart URBan Solutions for air quality, disasters and city growth" (SMURBS), in which specialists from the Space Research Institute of NAS of Ukraine and SSA of Ukraine received the first city atlas for the Kyiv city, which was similar to the European one. However, the resulting product had significantly fewer types of land use than the European one and therefore the question of improving the developed technology arose. The main purpose of the work is to analyze the existing technology of European service Urban Atlas creation and its improvement by developing a unified algorithm for building an urban atlas using all available open geospatial and satellite data for the cities of Ukraine. The development of such technology is based on our own technology for classifying satellite time series with a spatial resolution of 10 meters to build a land cover map, as well as an algorithm for unifying open geospatial data to urban atlases Copernicus. The technology of construction of the city atlas developed in work, based on the intellectual model of classification of a land cover, can be extended to other cities of Ukraine. In the future, the creation of such a product on the basis of data for different years will allow to assess changes in land use and make a forecast for further urban expansion. The proposed information technology for constructing the city atlas will be useful for assessing the dynamics of urban growth and closely related social and economic indicators of their development. Based on it, it is also possible to assess indicators of achieving the goals of sustainable development, such as 11.3.1 "The ratio of land consumption and population growth." The study shows that the city atlas obtained for the Kyiv city has a high level of quality and has comparable land use classes with European products. It indicates that such a product can be used in government decision-making services.


Author(s):  
Nuhu H. Tini ◽  
Bartholomew Joshua Light

Urban sprawl is a global phenomenon in the contemporary era. It is mostly taking place in the less developed countries due to natural increase and consistent movement of people into the mega cities and large urban centers. The phenomenon has globally gained attention from diverse researchers in the field of urban geography, environmental studies, city and region planning in view of its significant influence on the urban environment. However, the effect of sprawl on urban livability and economy in Nigerian cities is scarcely investigated especially in Northern Nigeria. This research explores the social and economic effects of urban sprawl in Kaduna metropolis. Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) Technologies were applied for the analysis. The study found that Kaduna metropolis has experienced a progressive increase in the built-up area; in 2006 it had an aerial coverage of 13,980 hectares, a rise of 107.91% from 2001 aerial coverage of 6724 hectares. In 2012, the city had an aerial coverage of 15,808 hectares, an increase of 13.08% from 2006. Conversely, there has been a remarkable decrease in percentage of vegetation (1,458 hectares) and agricultural (11,739 hectares) land areas. In turn, such changes has adversely affected urban facilities or utilities such as pipe-borne water, electricity, health facilities, schools, security, transportation, wastewater infrastructures and fire safety services, which has become overstressed. Economic crisis has manifested in the rise of unemployment and escalating number of urban poor. Residential land use has encroached into open spaces while commercial activities overrun residential areas. Increase in distance and journey time make travel cost unbearable to the common man. These and social fragmentation retard livability in the city. Thus calls for a balance sustainable development in Kaduna metropolis and effective management of urban growth by the Kaduna Capital Development Board Authority. In due course, smart growth policy, growth management, urban containment, effective land use planning and public facility adequacy have been recommended to foster viable urban growth in Kaduna city and elsewhere.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 618-644
Author(s):  
Hoshmand Jawhar Abbas ◽  
Sanger Ahmed Hussein ◽  
Fatimah Qader Mustafa

 The impact of the recreational services that exist within the group of services that are practiced within the geographical framework of the city, is not limited to the lives of its residents and their activities, but also on the residents of the surrounding areas. Recreational services contribute to providing diversified investment opportunities for leisure time, so that they are appropriate and beneficial to the health, comfort and well-being of the population at the lowest possible cost, without the goal of their establishment being financial gain, as they lead to the creation of mental, psychological and physical balance on the level of one individual and on the basis of society in a way. In general, recreational services are an integral part of urban activities in most cities of the world. Rather, the concept of modernity and urbanization in contemporary urban centers is measured to some extent by the availability of recreational facilities for their inhabitants, and the study also showed the low level of efficiency of recreational services in terms of their spatial distribution and numbers. As it is concentrated in some neighborhoods of the city, while it is less or absent in other neighborhoods, as well as not taking into account the planning standards in its distribution and during its construction in line with the population increase, urban expansion and the residents' needs for these services. The success in providing these different types of recreational facilities depends on how they are distributed geographically. The balanced distribution of these activities determines the success of the adopted plans in achieving the required goals and policies.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdallah Aouadi ◽  
Farrah Samraoui ◽  
Laid Touati ◽  
Riad Nedjah ◽  
Lynda Souiki ◽  
...  

Abstract Investigating how Mediterranean wetlands respond to adjacent land use conversion, is an important first step in mitigating the impact of human encroachment and other environmental stressors. We monitored the composition and structure of waterbird assemblages, in a Mediterranean urban marsh, subjected to severe anthropogenic pressures. Remote sensing indicated that in the last two decades Boussedra Pond was subjected to landfill, resulting in a substantial reduction (~ 50%) of the marsh, while due to a lack of urban planning urban built-up and agriculture areas expanded considerably in its surroundings. Seasonal changes in the diversity of waterbirds, including the globally Endangered (EN) White-headed Duck Oxyura leucocephala and the Near-Threatened (NT) Ferruginous Duck Aythya nyroca, reflected the importance of the site as a staging and wintering area for many migratory species. The long-term study also suggested that breeding waterbirds species respond differentially to the loss and degradation of habitats, as highlighted by the resilience of the synanthropic Moorhen Gallinula chloropus and the disappearance of several breeding marsh specialists, like the Little Bittern Ixobrychus minutus and the Western Marsh Harrier Circus aeruginosus. The study points out the need for both a coordinated cross-sectorial land use planning and an immediate, affordable and sustainable wetland conservation action.


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