Development of an Integrated System Prototype to Improve Decisions in Land Use Planning and Management in Ethiopia, Hawzen

Abstract

Constitutional land use planning provides a means of legal control over changes in land use and provides an opportunity to allocate land use to areas best suited to that activity. However, since land use planning is not surveying properly and essentially only deals with suggestions to improve land use system. Land use planning and resource management is a challenging task to many developing countries, due to limited technical resource. Currently land use planning and management is poorly managed, mainly caused by a lack of appropriate organization and access of integrated up-to-date geo-geospatial information, leading to unhurried decision making. Due to the rapid growth, urbanization and expansion of investment in Hawzen Woreda, the Office of Land Administration urgently needs to upgrade its land use planning system, while optimizing its limited resources. This study was conducted first to assess and evaluate the current practice in land use planning and management, and second to exploit the use of available low-cost Geographic Information Systems technologies in order the classify the parcels to land use based on criterion. Methods included PostgreSQL to create the database and use of the Open Geospatial Consortium standards of geo-spatial information and dissemination of this information through geoportal. An integrated system has been developed and tested; spatial analysis and decision support systems are applied and its relevance was validated by experts and managers in the Wereda. The study showed that with the use of low-cost GIS technologies, land use planning and management can be significantly vital.

Keywords: Land use planning, GIS, open source software, Hawzen, Ethiopia