Abstract: This article explores the driving factors of urban growth in Kathmandu Valley using analytic hierarchy process. The dynamic pattern of urban growth in the valley has been greatly influenced by seven driving factors: physical conditions, public service accessibility, economic opportunities, land market, population growth, political situation, and plans and policies. These factors have played important yet different roles in the city core, fringe, and rural areas. Among these factors, economic opportunities in the core, population growth in the fringe, and the political situation in the rural areas are identified as the highest impact factors of urban growth. Due to the lesser land availability in the city core, the land market factor had a smaller role in the core compared to the fringe and rural areas. The plans and policies factor is evaluated as minimally effective in all thematic areas. The physical condition factor had a low impact in the city core and fringe areas, but played a larger role than the economic opportunities, public service accessibility, and plans and policies in the rural areas. Due to spatial disparities in the public service establishments in the valley, the public services accessibility factor had a low impact in the rural area. A representative model of driving factors is presented to explain the overall relationship between the factors in the urban growth process of the metropolitan region.
Abstract: This paper examines the degree of multidisplinary cooperation for Geographic Information Science (GIS) education programs that award GIS-related degrees or certificates at US colleges and universities. We classified departments and courses into ten major disciplines using Dewey Decimal Classification. In the 2007–2008 academic year, approximately 40 per cent of GIS education programs related to multiple disciplines and nearly 20 per cent were involved with more
than three disciplines. Geography was the major provider of GIS education programs, but the ratio between geography-related discipline and other disciplines combined was approximately 1:3. Fostering multidisciplinary GIS education programs should strengthen geography in general as well as GIS education.
Abstract: This paper examines the spatiotemporal pattern of urbanization in Kathmandu Valley using remote sensing and spatial metrics techniques. The study is based on 33-years of time series data compiled from satellite images. Along with new developments within the city fringes and rural villages in the valley, shifts in the natural environment and newly developed socioeconomic strains between residents are emerging. A highly dynamic spatial pattern of urbanization is observed in the valley. Urban built-up areas had a slow trend of growth in the 1960s and 1970s but have grown rapidly since the 1980s. The urbanization process has developed fragmented and heterogeneous land use combinations in the valley. However, the refill type of development process in the city core and immediate fringe areas has shown a decreasing trend in the neighborhood distances between land use patches, and an increasing trend towards physical connectedness, which indicates a higher probability of homogenous landscape development in the upcoming decades.
Abstract: The rapid growth of urban space and its environmental challenges require precise mapping techniques to represent complex earth surface features more accurately. In this study, we examined four mapping approaches (unsupervised, supervised, fuzzy supervised and GIS post-processing) using Advanced Land Observing Satellite images to predict urban land use and land cover of Tsukuba city in Japan. Intensive fieldwork was conducted to collect ground truth data. A random stratified sampling method was chosen to generate geographic reference data for each map to assess the accuracy. The accuracies of the maps were measured, producing error matrices and Kappa indices. The GIS post-processing approach proposed in this research improved the mapping results, showing the highest overall accuracy of 89.33% as compared to other approaches. The fuzzy supervised approach yielded a better accuracy (87.67%) than the supervised and unsupervised approaches. The fuzzy supervised approach effectively dealt with the heterogeneous surface features in residential areas. This paper presents the strengths of the mapping approaches and the potentials of the sensor for mapping urban areas, which may help urban planners monitor and interpret complex urban characteristics.
Abstract: Kathmandu is the capital of Nepal and forms the core of the nation’s most populous urban region. The city has been important economically, administratively, and politically for hundreds of years. With its ancient monuments scattered around, Kathmandu is an emerging city where several plans and concepts have been implemented for its development. Like many cities of the developing world, it has been facing rapid population expansion and daunting socio-economic problems. There are issues of inadequate urban management of the city’s expansion, including inadequate infrastructure and squatter settlements, with severe environmental consequences including air, water and other forms of pollution. In this profile, Kathmandu is defined as comprising the two contiguous and closely interlinked administrative entities, Kathmandu Metropolitan City and Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City. The paper analyzes historical urban development process, current plans and programmes, land use change and some contemporary socio-economic indicators for Kathmandu city, traces the major urban problems of the city, and considers future direction for its development.
Abstract: This paper presents an integrated technique of analytical hierarchical process (AHP) and geographic information system (GIS) to evaluate the land for peri-urban agriculture. Hanoi province, Vietnam was selected for the case study. Transformation of conventional agriculture to modern cash crops is the current trend in peri-urban Hanoi. A field survey with focused group discussions was conducted. Based on field survey data analysis, soil, land use, water resources, road network and market were chosen as major factors affecting the peri-urban agriculture. A map of each factor with different logical criteria was prepared. The AHP method was applied to identify the priority weight of each factor. Five spatial layers with their corresponding weights were linearly combined to prepare the suitability map. The map was further scaled as high suitable, medium suitable, low suitable and unsuitable land for the peri-urban agriculture. This empirical scenario provides a cost effective, rapid land evaluation framework which may help policy makers, urban and regional planners and researchers working in developing countries.
Abstract: Cooperation among different fields of study is an important component in developing effective GIS curricula. In this paper, we examined interdepartmental cooperation in general and cooperation between geography-related and engineering/information-related fields in particular in GIS education programs at US universities for the 2006-2007 academic year. We found that of 114 GIS education programs, 42 (37%) programs featured interdepartmental curricula comprising classes from multiple departments, and 25 (22%) programs involved cooperation among four or more departments. Cooperation between geography-related and engineering/information-related departments was found in 23 (20%) programs. The results provide useful data for developing GIS curricula in Japan.
Abstract: Developing systematic GIS education programs is an important issue in Japan. This paper examined GIS education programs at US colleges and universities for the 2007-08 academic year. A majority (72%) of the GIS education programs awarded certificates while the remainder (28%) awarded degrees. Approximately 40% of the GIS education programs were based on interdepartmental cooperation. Among ten main classes (fields) of the Dewey Decimal Classification system, the field of history & geography played the most important role in the GIS education programs, while the fields of computer science, information and general works, science, social sciences, and technology played relatively significant roles. Cooperation between any combinations of two of these five fields was found with similar frequencies in around 10% of all programs. GIS education programs are considerably more advanced in the US than in Japan.
Abstract: This paper discusses the situation of sea navigation in south East Asia focusing on the Strait of Malacca. The strait links the Indian and Pacific oceans, which is considered one of the busiest in several narrow channels around the world. The paper highlights the significance of the strait to global maritime trade, volume of traffic, and rising environmental and social consequences in the strait. A feasibility study of constructing a new shipping canal in the South Thai Kra Isthmus as an alternative option of Malacca route had been studied since 19th century. The paper explores suitable sites for a potential shipping canal in the Kra Isthmus using physiographic spatial data i.e., elevation, sea charts, geology, soils and river systems. Each spatial data was considered as a separate decision variable for site evaluation. Separate evaluation criterions were prepared for each variable based on shipping canal requirements. Overlaying the maps in GIS environment, the variables were carefully evaluated, and five geographic sites for the canal were derived. The length of the shipping canal over sea and land was computed for each site. Site B located in south of Ranong and Chumphon provinces, was the shortest one, whereas site C in Surat Thani, Pangnna and Krabi provinces was the longest. However, each site consisted of benefits and constraints.
