Detection of Urban Growth Patterns linked with Sozial-Science Data Across Cities in Southeastern Nigeria

The lack of large-scale social-science data and the scientific community's preference for studying urban growth in large cities have resulted in a relatively neglected urban growth trend at the regional and global levels in mid-sized cities. Monitoring urban growth changes in mid-sized cities is imperative because they have a direct bearing on the growth patterns of metropolitan cities. Understanding how growth occurs in mid-sized cities is particularly crucial, given that the instance of an early urban development pattern in mid-sized cities typically influences other growth patterns in large cities, as changes in mid-sized cities are frequently found to lead to significant urban transformation in metropolitan cities. To address these issues and promote sustainable urban growth in accordance with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 11, a research framework that is capable of highlighting socioeconomic problems across Nigerian cities and proffer solutions that would lead to the realization of those goals in cities must be developed. This study sought to monitor changes in urban areas and simultaneously quantify agricultural land loss resulting from urbanization using relevant scientific literature, social-science data, and remote-sensing data. This study uses the following southeastern Nigerian cities as an illustrative case study: Warri, Uyo, Aba, and Umuahia. This is because they manifest diverse unplanned urban development patterns that are characterized by sparse built-up patterns, rural-urban migration, and local economic/population growth, which pose a threat to all nearby agrarian lands. The first objective of this study was to examine how changes in Uyo’s infrastructure development and local economic growth impact urban expansion. Additionally, time-series data were used to show the trends in vegetative land loss. The integration of spatial data using different social-science data has not been scientifically explored in Nigeria and thus remains a huge knowledge gap in the country. To address this knowledge gap, the second and third objectives of this thesis focus on the influence of tax and natural resource revenue on urban growth patterns across cities in southern and eastern Nigeria, respectively. The results obtained further elaborate and validate previous studies that demonstrate that urbanization in Africa differs from urbanization in the global west. In this study, diverse remote sensing approaches were adopted to analyse the 30m Landsat historical datasets. The 30m datasets were used to identify the spatiotemporal changes in built-up patterns to generate a time-series trend of vegetation loss from 1986 to 2018. High-resolution 5m RapidEye images were used to map various socioeconomic growth areas based on fieldwork reference datasets. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of various urban sectors and ministry heads in an effort to expand the socioeconomic data. The research objectives were considered when evaluating archived data from different government ministries. The findings reveal how the infusion of shared natural resource revenue led to both the emergence of a consumption-based economy and economic change in the local community. The distribution of natural resource revenue stimulates significant infrastructure development, increases household income, and provides basic social amenities in urban areas. Regarding urban migration, the respondents concurred that the demand for white-collar jobs (which are difficult to secure in metropolitan areas) and lack of basic social amenities have triggered rural-urban migration. Satellite data showed a significant loss in agricultural land and new sparse built-up areas between different urban land-use classes. These spatial changes in urban areas, as proven in this study, depend directly on shared natural resources and the local economy. Furthermore, the results obtained demonstrate the mapping of mixed usage and commercial areas that directly affect local economic growth; however, these were not included in previous studies. Analysis of the socioeconomic survey data shows that infrastructural development in peri-urban areas has increased the prices of land, thereby encouraging low-income earners to sell some of their inherited landed property at fair prices to high-income earners in the hope that they will bring development to their communities. This corresponded with interviews conducted with governmental heads to ascertain whether infrastructural development is a critical driver of agricultural land loss in most suburban communities, and also affirmed that the sale of inherited lands is the order of the day. The case study explored in this research provides a useful reference point for the numerous increasingly urbanized cities in Nigeria, particularly developing African cities that are not well represented in the existing urbanization literature. The case study shows that planning and distributing urban infrastructure development throughout communities is necessary to counter the incessant sale of land, that sensitization to the effects of the continuous loss of agrarian land should be intensified and discouraged, and that depending on shared natural resources to fund urban infrastructural developments in the study areas raises concerns about its long-term sustainability.