Evaluating Building Density Analysis Using Geographical Information System

Abstract

In Mekelle city, urban sprawl is continuously expanding to the surrounding hinterland at an alarming rate without considering the inner infill area of the city. Moreover, several numbers of developers and land speculator hold large tract of vacant land. This has resulted because land speculators buy large aggregation lands and develop small part of their plot and keep the land until the price rises up. And this creates low density continuous urban sprawl with lack of basic infrastructure. Therefore, in all urban centers of the Tigray region and Ethiopia in general, inefficient land utilization and development is manifested in the form of vacant and scattered low density development, inconsistent with land use zoning regulation. Moreover, the problem is aggravated as a result of lack of infrastructure and under regulation. Similarly, land utilization in Mekelle and AdiHaki-Dejen area in particular, is inefficient as a result of the vacant lands without adequate infrastructure and low reinforcement mechanism. Therefore, the objective of the study was to identify the potential vacant lands using GIS. Thus the research started by assessing and analyzing the current condition of urban land utilization using primary and secondary data sources. Thus, using the point density analysis of Arc GIS geoprocessing tool was used to identify the building density. As the result of the building density analysis indicates, it varies within the range of 0–7928 m2 (0–79.28%) building density per 10,000 m2 (1 ha) of land. In contrast, the vacant land varies from 10,000–2072 m2 (100–20.72%) potential vacant land per 10,000 m2 of land. The research finding shows that 619,346 m2 (79.36%) is the total potential net vacant land within the range of 10,000–6828.21 m2 (100–68.28%) vacant land per 10,000 m2 of land. On the other hand, the building density varies from 0–3171.79 m2 (0–31.72%) per 10,000 m2 of land. So, most of these land were vacant as a result of low land consumption per one hectare of land. And most of these vacant lands, within this range were dominated by residential and commercial land uses, were least land development per capita investment. Generally, results were used as base line for urban planners, land use planners and managers to use the application of ArcGIS in urban land use planning and utilization for economically efficient land development and management. The method can be adopted to apply GIS in identification of vacant land, partially utilized lands and underutilized lands in all urban centers of the region.

Keywords: Building point density, vacant lands, urban Land utilization, spatial analysis, AdiHaki-Dejen, Mekelle, Ethiopia

Cite this Article

Vanum Govindu, Haftay Hailu G/Yohannes, Yechale Kebede Bizuneh. Evaluating Building Density Analysis Using Geographical Information System. Journal of Remote Sensing & GIS. 2019; 10(1): 24–39p.