Conception and Practice of Data-Based System for Soil Qualities and Town Planning Information ()
1. Introduction
Plans-makers do not consider the situation of the remote areas and the benefit of these land-owners, usually been made in the offices of government departments, remote from the areas being planned or the people who would be affected and, usually, without their involvement. Conventional urban land planning has followed rigid procedures, set out in planning manuals, and the focus has largely been on the use of few land qualities mainly slope, steepness, hills, elevation, valleys, vegetation, roads, social-economic data and disregarding other important land qualities such as soil properties. Planning process has been technical, relying first on the gathering of basic information about natural resources and socio-economic conditions in the areas concerned, followed by analysis and interpretation (land evaluation). Much of this information has been provided by natural resources professionals and institutions (Magnuson et al., 2000).
One area where integration of soil knowledge could help in urban planning is considering the role soils play in water cycle regulation, a function that gets lost when soils are flooded (McGrane, 2016). Exploiting this role of soils will become increasingly important as climate change exacerbates current issues, for example it is expected that precipitation events will become more intense, resulting in floods in residential areas (McGranahan et al., 2007).
There is already an extensive knowledge on the properties and performance (in terms of productivity) of soil and more recently many advances have been made regarding the development of soil ecosystem services frameworks (Costantini et al., 2016; Dominati et al., 2010; Schwilch et al., 2016). However, the biggest gap is the management of the data for sustainable usage and the availability of the knowledge to the user community (planners and the society). Majority of the land properties spatial data are stored in hardcopy paper format; others are in softcopy format but they are in non-spatial representation formats making it hard to explore the required information. Spatial data management is the key to a better spatial representation, analysis and visualization (Pan et al., 2019). Proper functioning spatial web apps and spatial mobile apps both depend on a proper database with a good managed data (ESRI, 2004). In this chapter of the study, we are focusing on collection and management of land properties and land use constraints data into a database that will provide a linkage between land properties and town planning information. Thus the specific objectives of this study are:
1) Collecting and providing a means for management of data concerning land properties and land use constraints data through a geodatabase.
2) Providing a linkage between land properties and town planning information.
2. Methodology
2.1. Designing of the Geo-Database
Proper design is crucial for the successful implemented geodatabase. Various factors are considered when planning for geodatabase implementation. Goals and purpose of the geodatabase dictates its designs while Alternatives of approaches and vision of the user also determines the implementations of the geodatabase. After a satisfying literature review and case study analysis, five main steps were identified for a proper geodatabase designing (Armstrong & Densham, 1990; Ellis et al., 2019; Talebi et al., 2015):
1) Modeling of the user’s view
This is such a crucial part of the geodatabase designing. The main goal of this stage is to develop a clear understanding between the designing team and the users of the geodatabase. Functions of the user community, data required to support the functions, data location implementation plan and the organization of the user community are crucial in modeling user’s view.
In this study, the geodatabase was designed for land use planning officials in Morogoro. The main user community is land use planners, land department officials and environmental officials in Morogoro municipal (Figure 1). Other users can be members of the society and GIS users in the industry. This geodatabase was designed to provide the user community with land use constraints associated with land use plans in Morogoro municipal. Nevertheless, type and the level of user community requires a different GIS capabilities compared to the other community level.
2) Define objects and their relationship
In the proceeding step objects of the database were identified. In this step these objects are further defined to understand their relationships and any common properties shared between them. This is one of the most demanding and time-consuming stage of geodatabase designing as it concerning with management and validation of the dataset to be used in the implementation of the geodatabase. Documentation of the identified relationships is also important.
In the current study, various factors associated with land use constraints were considered. These constraints were documented and grouped into determining factors as shown in Table 1 below. The selection of important features was done in order to avoid data duplication and messy features as it was necessary to
create a very specific geodatabase for the very specific functionalities. This helps to remove unusable features from our geodatabase.
3) Identify representation of the objects
In this stage of geodatabase designing, the identified and selected objects are classified based on their representation. Geodatabase designed was containing various data types and data formats. Some objects represented on a map for points, lines, polygons, surfaces and raster while others such as photos and images couldn’t. Some objects have different scales from one another; other objects are significant to geospatial analysis of the identified functions while others aren’t. This information is considered in this stage of geodatabase designing. In this study a variety of the object representation was identified as summarized on the Table 2 below.
4) Match to Geodatabase Data Model
In this stage of geodatabase management it is crucial for deciding the way and format in which the identified objects will be represented in the ArcInfo. In this stage the identified objects are assigned their respective ArcInfo representation models. The main focus of this stage is to move from understanding user requirements to development of effective database plan. In this study it is crucial to determine the means of representation for both complex, simple data and objects. In the current project various ArcInfo data representation types were identified and
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Table 1. Factors datasets and the identified features used in this study.
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Table 2. Breakdown of various data types.
prepared as summarized on the Table 3 below.
Furthermore, crucial information of these objects was shared from the appropriate authorities i.e. Morogoro Municipality, Wami-Ruvu basin management council and soil department. This information was summarized on objects metadata and attribute tables.
5) Organization into geographic datasets
In this final step of geodatabase designing, the created datasets were grouped into feature classes. A total of three feature datasets (Base map, Soil Information and Constraints) is presented in Figure 2 were created using projection and the coordinate system of the respective consistent objects. In each feature class, the Object ID in the attribute table was used as a primary key while the feature name was used as the super key of a database. These datasets were projected into a
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Table 3. Breakdown of ArcInfo data representation types.
uniform spatial reference (Arc_1960_UTM_Zone_37S) to ensure maintenance of high consistency level for the data incorporated in the geodatabase.
3. Results and Discussion
The main objective of this study was to design a data based system (a Geodata-Base) that will provide a linkage between soil properties and detailed town planning information. The aim is to integrate both spatial and non-spatial information to assist town planning officer and reduce the incidences concerning with land use constraints in already planned schemes. Figure 3 below demonstrates the several data inputs that were generated an incorporated to our Geodata-Base. The main inputs for our Geodata-Base are:
1) Mapvector features
These features include lines, polygons and lines that were created using ArcGIS 10.5. Some features for example land use constraints such as soil depth, flood map, waterlogging areas, rock outcrops and erosion hazards were created through analysis of the available soil information, climate data and historical captured satellite imageries. Soil sampling points were retrieved from the available database of soil surveys conducted in Morogoro Municipal. Contours and slope percentage datasets were created by analysis of Digital Elevation Model (DEM).
2) Base maps
Three base map features were used in creation of our geodatabase. Morogoro Municipal boundary layer was used to map demarcations of the municipality and the respective wards. A total of 28 wards were identified in Morogoro municipal.
Municipal land use master plan is the spatial information pre identified land use plan schemes as planned by the governing other small land use plan schemes in Morogoro municipal.
Geodatabase Implementation
This study was conducted to design the geodatabase that will create a linkage between land planning schemes and soil information. The steps taken as explained on the proceeding sessions are effective to create a functional geodatabase that will improve land monitoring and planning activities in Morogoro municipal with respect to soil information and land use constraints. Also the available and used datasets are enough just to move the authorities and the municipal in a right direction towards sustainable town planning schemes.
Nevertheless these mapped soil properties and landform features are not as detailed enough. There is a room for improvement especially to make a more detailed geodatabase for more improved management and planning schemes. In the municipal office, there are several departments with an access to appropriate software for geodatabase implementation. Land monitoring and administration and environmental department for instance though with a limited access i.e. basic license which by the way is enough for the management and implementation of geodatabase.
A file geodatabase was created in this project using ArcGIS 10.5. File geodatabase was chosen to accomplish the targeted task because through it datasets can be edited and manipulated by various users at the same time. To make this information accessible to the target authorities and the community is a bit challenge because of lack of enough resources especially licensed computer. To deal with that challenge, although one computer will be selected by the respective office which will be provided with ArcGIS 10.5 license to show the status of the datasets in the database as added by the admin of the system. This computer will give the opportunity for the staff members to view data and provide the required information such as soil properties and landform features for the respective customers regarding land use constraints and other soil information.
The solution is not sustainable but it is feasible considering the situation at the end of designing, test data were included in order to check and confirm the functionality of the geodatabase.
4. Conclusion
This study was conducted originally to assess the available soil information and the land planning schemes in spatial perspectives. Further land use constraints were assessed in relation to approved detailed land planning schemes in Morogoro. The ultimate aim of this study is to create a web based geospatial app that will visualize land use constraints in Morogoro so as to ensure proper and sustainable land use plans approving in Morogoro municipal and prevent some preventable disasters and losses unforeseeable future caused by improper land use plans. The result of this study shows that there is enough data for designing a web based app to start with in the quest of making a complete and functional app.
Nevertheless, updating and improvement of the available data by the associated authorities will be crucial, because the available data for example soil surveys and land form features were collected in 1999 which is more than 20 years ago, enough room for some changes on the land features, and it is easy to update and improve of the available data.
Otherwise, the output of this study is very positive as it paves a way for open access data for various uses to implement sustainable development goals. The information provided by the database is crucial for disaster management and land management practices by the authorities and the community as well. It also sheds the light for the implementation in other municipalities in Tanzania towards another approach of land management practices.
Appendices
Appendix 1. Detailed Soil Information of MapUnits
Appendix 2. Detailed Analytical Data Report of the Soil Profiles of Various Sampling Points