Assessing the Impact of Urban Growth on Agricultural Land in Gasabo District a case study of Ndera Sector

Abstract

Urbanization resulted into changes in the landscape, specifically the proliferation of concrete and impervious surfaces, and the displacement of agriculture and forestland. This study aimed  to quantify urban growth and the changes of land use/land cover from 2005-2015 and to assess the impact of urban growth on agricultural land in Ndera sector of Gasabo district. To achieve the objectives, data  have been collected such as shapefiles of Rwanda Administrative boundaries, Quick bird of 2005 and World View II of 2015 were acquired and processed by ERDAS IMAGINE Software to obtain Land use/Land cover and change detection maps, the various land cover classes that were interpreted in the study area include, built-up land, agricultural land, vegetation, water bodies and bare soil were visually analyzed and finally the maps were produced in Arc GIS Software.

The result of the study indicated that; in 2015, there was a significant rise in built-up areas where built-up raised from 2.07% in 2005 to7.14% in 2015; this means that the built-areas have increased by 5.07% between those spoken above periods while agricultural land was decreased with regard to the results by 19.64%. So, referring to those impacts followed by urban growth on agricultural land in Ndera sector of Gasabo district the city has to improve the land management knowledge and skills of the city planners to balance the increase of urban land demand and the loss of agricultural land.