Utilizing GIS to Sustainable Urban Growth

For Upper Egypt: Future Perspectives

.Abstract .1

In Egypt, the inhabited activities centralizing in a limited number of cities which

suffering from great growth in its urban plan or its inhabitant size. This occurs as
.a result of amassed factors during last year's
The most important factors are the continue immigration from the rural area, the
permanent increasing of population, and the concentration of most urban activities
and public services in the Egyptian important big cities. The regarding of the
metropolitans affected the small and medium cities which represent 85% from the
.total Egyptian cities
On the other hand, the Egyptian metropolitans represent only 15% from the total
Egyptian cities. The small and medium cities could be include a big percentage of
urban areas citizens and partially participate to release some metropolitan
problems

.Introduction .2
For a long time, The Egyptian Government neglect the establishment of urban and
rural regulations "Lower and Upper Egypt" for development and direction the
investments to the small and medium Egyptian cities. Our paper will concern
especially with Upper Egypt which is gain the most neglecting of Egyptian
Government. This leads to deterioration the urban activities and appearance many
problems in the fields of urbanization, social, and economical. So, it becomes
expulsion of its population. Therefore, many negative appearances reflected on
urban growth and all over life activities in Aswan city. During last years, the
practical planning solutions to face city problems were temporary solutions
.without an extensive planning view
The paper aims to show the urban growth problem in small and medium cities in
Upper Egypt which suffering from sprawl urban growth. This happened as a
result of disregarding these cities during last year's. Therefore, these problems
infected city rules such as unbalancing the distribution of city sizes, and expulsion
its population.
This article paper aims to improving modeling methods and techniques to analyze
urban growth as a complex phenomenon. The wide concept of urban development
implies changes, growth or decline. The term includes the physical, socio-
economic and environmental dimensions. Physically and functionally, urban
development includes both new development and urban redevelopment. In

Page 1
 contrast to decline, growth involves the transition into urban of non-urban
activities and spaces. The physical aspects of urban growth are related to land
cover, the functional to land use. Then, temporal and spatial urban growth
indicates the spatial and temporal dimensions of land cover/land use change at the
level of the urban landscape.
Urban planning can be utilized for analyzing, evaluating, predicting and
simulating urban systems to support decision-making. From the perspective of
spatial science, modeling must take both the spatial and temporal dimensions of
urban systems into account.
Egypt is the one of the fastest rates of urbanization in the world
according to our recourses and agriculture land. Egypt
population according to CAPMAS census at 2006 was 72.798
million Inhabitants and it was at 1976 - 36.626 million
Inhabitants that display the urban population in Egypt over the
last three decades have been duplicates. 43.9% of them living
urban and all inhabitants populate on 7.83% of Egypt total area
(the Total area of Egypt is 1009.45 thousand Km). All population
Live on the river valley. Egypt is currently growing at 1.7% per
year From previous information we could predicting the Egypt
future on 2036 the population will increase 100%. It will be
145.596 Million inhabitants. For this reason that focusing on
improving the sustainability of developed Egypt urban growth is
so critical. (CAPMAS2006)

.Urban Growth for Upper Egypt .3

Upper Egypt regions

consists of four
governorates that are
Aswan, Qena, Souhag, Red
Sea and one Metropolitan
is Luxor ( Becomes
governorate on Dec.2009)
exported 13% of their
combined population to
other regions in Egypt
(Upper Egypt is 868.139.9
inhabitants) Figure 1
explore the Upper Egypt
population from 1960 to
. 2006

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According to CAPMAS census the growth rate was 2.5 percent in early 1960s but
as we see (Figure1) the population growth rate from 1960 to 1966 in Upper Egypt
was 1.09 percent which means 1.41 percent of the general rate of Upper Egypt
migrate forward the Lower Egypt region searching for social or economic
opportunities, in other word the half of the increased population have been
migrated because there is no urbanization in their regions could apply the
.increasing population
In 1976 CAPMAS census the Upper Egypt population was approximately 4.3
million inhabitants which mean 1.34 percent of the growth rate(2.5 percent) was
also migrated forward to Lower Egypt, that happened also in 1986 and 1996
census but it becomes more seriously in 2006 census . according to the CAPMAS
census the Upper Egypt Population was approximately 10.7 million inhabitants
but it decreased to 8.7 million inhabitants in 2006 which mean the Upper Egypt
region becomes expelled of its population due neglecting the urbanization of that
region. As we see the Upper Egypt growth rate has become negative - 0.8 percent
where it was 1.9 percent in all regions of Egypt according to that percentage the
Upper Egypt suppose to be 18 million inhabitants and that mean about 10 million
.inhabitants are already migrated from Upper Egypt region

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 figure 1
If we supposed the growth rate will be stabile the Upper Egypt will be according
: the Equation of time-series as shown

Year y x x2 x2*y x2

1960 3.34 2.5- 5- 16.7- 25

-
1966 3.70 1.5- 3- 9
11.10
1976 4.30 0.5- 1- 4.30- 1

1986 5.60 0.5 1 5.60 1

1996 10.64 1.5 3 31.92 9

2006 8.68 2.5 5 43.40 25

∑ 36.26 48.82 70

yˆ = p 0 + p1 x

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p1 =
∑ xy × n = 48 .82 × 6 = 292 .92 = 0.70
∑ x × n 70 × 6
2
420

p0 =
∑ y = 36 .26 = 6.04
n 6

∴y
ˆ = 6.04 +0.70 x

∴ŷ 2036 = 6.04 + 0.70 ×11 =13.74 Million Inhabit.

Which mean the Upper Egypt migration will be about 30 Million inhabitants in
. 2036 so that we must to began to establishing new urban for that amount
Figure 2) compared Urban/Rural of upper Egypt population from 1996 to 2006)
which showing how the urbanization of upper Egypt was decreased from 1996 to
2006 and that till us how much the government neglect the urbanization of that
.region

figure 2
(CAPMAS 2009)

That will leads us to search for Radical solution for Upper Egypt region and how
we can improve the sustainability to urban growth. Upper Egypt, communities
concentrating in a limited number of Metropolitans which suffering from great
growth either in its urban layout or its resident's size. This happened as a result of

Page 5
several factors during last year's. The most important factors are the continues
immigration from the rural area to urban area, and that leads to the permanent
increasing of population, and the concentration of most urban activities and public
services in the main metropolitans. And could be include a big percentage of
urban areas citizens and partially participate to release some metropolitan
.problems
For a long time, The Egyptian Government neglected the establishment of urban
regulations for development and direction the investments to the small and
medium Egyptian cities especially in Upper Egypt. This leads to deterioration the
urban activities and appearance many of problems in the fields of urbanization,
social, and economical. So, these cities became expulsion of its population.
Therefore, many negative appearances reflected on Upper Egypt urban growth
and all over life activities in these cities. During last years, the practical planning
solutions to face Upper Egypt problems were temporary solutions without a
.comprehensive planning view
Upper Egypt suffering from many urgent problems in many fields; urban, social,
and economic. This happened as a result of unscientific and studied decisions
.which taken by decisions makers which based on RS and GIS
Therefore, these problems affected city rules such as unbalancing the distribution
.of city sizes, and expulsion its population
There is a study done by Haughton and Hunter (1994) they have calculated that
on average each city of one million people consumes 625,000 tones of water,
2000 tons of food and 9500 tons of fuel, and generates 500,000 tons of waste
water, 2000 tons of waste solids and 950 tones of air pollutants on a daily basis.
While this level of resource consumption is clearly unsustainable, it remains very
difficult to devise ways to reduce the levels of resource consumption while
.maintaining the high standard of living that people enjoy in developed nations
The essay aims to show the most important problems and to limit the available
opportunities in small and medium cities in Upper Egypt and try to understanding
of the cities existing situation which leads to the ability of progressing and
.developing these cities to reach to the sustainability
I will suggest a group of policies could be help to improve the urban performance
and achieve urban sustainable development for small and medium cities of Upper
.Egypt regions

.Sustainability Urban Growth of Upper Egypt .4

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Substantially accelerated consider and discussion on the problems related to
meeting the needs of the present without compromising "the ability of future
.(generations to meet their own needs'(WCED, 1987
The concept of sustainable development has become increasingly significant as a
target for creating a better future for the Upper Egypt, economically, socially and
environmentally. Operating in contradiction with efforts to create a more
sustainable future are factors such as an ever-increasing population, and more
importantly, an almost exponential growth in the use of resources, many of them
.(non-renewable (Elkin et. al., 1991
Sustainable development is the challenge of meeting growing human needs for
natural resources, industrial products, energy, food, transportation, shelter, and
effective waste management while conserving and protecting environmental
quality and the natural resource base essential for future life and development.
This concept recognizes that meeting long term human needs will be impossible
unless we also conserve the earth’s natural physical, chemical, and biological
.(systems (Colombo, 2001; Grossmann, 2000
So approaching Sustainability Urban Growth of Upper Egypt a compact policies,
planning and decisions by
Coordination, collaboration between a teamwork which must be is consisting of
Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban communities (HUUC), Ministry of
Communications, Ministry of Social and Ministry of Transportations. Completion
of this plan required a wide logistic mobilization of human resources and
.infrastructure which is the main point for a long term vision for all Upper Egypt
:The objectives of that teamwork are
Present ways to expand and improve infrastructure, facilities and public •
.services of Upper Egypt regions and coverage
Provide a strategic framework to modify tendencies for identifying •
economic activities of population, in order to produce a balanced regional
.development
Reinforce urban capacities to accommodate a steady increase in the •
population
A systemic and strategic approach allowed articulation of various elements •
.in a hierarchical structured at the same time dynamic and flexible
This approach is useful to formulate policies of Upper Egypt regional's
development to guide region planning and distribution of population. A policy
here means association between the urban locations in their areas, to the
framework of the social and economic objectives for its regions. The systemic

Page 7
approach allowed us to define those areas of the region where development
strategies should cover, taking advantage of their roles as its reference, economic
.drivers, and service providers for their areas
The basic part of the elaboration process of the urban growth included compiling
and processing information from all regions, government agencies and
governorates departments. This information had to be presented in texts and
graphs to support the characterization and the evaluation of the situation and
further include programmatic actions from all government agencies in Egypt, so
as to provide a framework to coordinate all actions influencing development of all
.urban centers in Upper Egypt
I mean here by the elaboration is the inventory of urban land for social housing
and urban infrastructure of the four governorates of Upper Egypt and Luxor
Metropolitan. The inventory is the completed integrating statistical, documentary
and cartographic information that will allow optimizing interurban areas and
supporting decisions to acquire land for regional reserves through systems and
.mechanisms of evaluation
The objectives of this land inventory focus on the expanding of the city’s areas as
it identifies spaces to move into organizing development using GIS background as
the national evaluation system to select areas with best conditions for urban
.development and cities which are under current plans
The basic part of the elaboration process of the urban development of Upper
Egypt included collecting and processing information from the Central Agency
for Public Mobilization And Statistics ( CAPMAS) beside the information of the
teamwork These information had to be presented in texts and graphs to support
the characterization and the situation of current urbanization further include
programmatic actions from all government agencies in the Egypt, so as to provide
a framework to coordinate all actions which will cause affect on the development
:of all urban centers in the Upper Egypt such as
.Capacity for implementing infrastructure and public services •
.Evaluation the possibility of satisfied demand and future supply •
.Land costs •
.Identification of empty and underutilized land with urban ability •
Identification of the ownership organization (private, common property, •
;(governmental, local authority, national land
:In the short term, the inventory and its information systems will allow us to
Make consultations on Landscape and land use to reserve that could be used for •
housing and urban development, through identification, characterization and

Page 8
valuation of areas. To make it more valuable for consulting, this system can be
.integrated to a national database
Identify the current and future demand for housing in the Upper Egypt regional, •
based mainly in statistical tendencies on population, population density, internal
migration, etc., in order to determine needed areas for the regional according to
.its demanded reserves
Prioritize land use in those areas included in the existing instruments of urban •
.planning that remain without use
In the long term, the inventory will provide the Ministry of Housing, Utilities
and Urban communities (HUUC), Ministry of Communications, Ministry of
Social and Ministry of Transportations Development with a GIS instrument that
:manages basic information such as
.Urban census cartography •
.Land ownership •
.Public services coverage •
.Programming of urban infrastructure •
.Stochastic land occupation •
.Value of land •
.All this information can be visualized by GIS in three steps

:GIS As a Tool of Sustainability Urban Growth .5

With the rapidly development of Information and Communication Technology
(ICT), there is a major opportunity for the authorities to use it to manage the
allocation of rare resources in a rapidly changing environment. The quality of
urban planning and management can be upgraded when available and valid data
.are handled in an advanced behavior with the assistance of computers
The recent widespread introduction of Geo-information Technology (GIT)
provides an exciting ability for geographic information to be used more
.systematically and by greater diversity of discipline than ever before
Geographical Information System (GIS) technology is an important tool of the
Plan development process. The required information's should be analyzed,
visualized and presented to support decision-making. One of the most commonly
used methods for land-use decision making is spatial Multi Criteria Decision
Analysis (MCDA). This method combines all the spatial factors that are
important, and results in a map with the best locations for a specific type of land-
.use

Page 9
For establishing GIS to visualizing the development we have to follow the next
:phases
• Compiling cartographic and statistical information. Cartographic and
statistical data were taken from CAPMAS (Central Agency for Public
Mobilization and Statistics) information. This information had been
validated in the field and had to be taken from censual information linked to
the geo-reference.
• Compiling documentary and field information. This was probably the
most difficult phase, including compiling complications. Firstly, public
agencies responsible for generating information on coverage and programming
of services and registration of land tenure were identified. Frequently, urban
authorities could not help us identify their own authority. Secondly, with the
lists of agencies and offices at hand, we addressed each and every one of them
asking for specific information required from them, but giving a whole
perspective of the development objective and the mechanisms for information
delivery. This had to be supported by meetings and interviews with officers in
charge in every city and office in the list. This phase generated information for
layers, as well as statistical information on present and future land demand by
type of activity; population dynamics (structure, socio-economical, migration
and tendencies), services infrastructure and coverage; and capacity to tend
demands for land. State delegations for the Utilities and Urban
communities (HUUC) were particularly helpful in follow-up and
retrofitting of required information.
• Analysis and integration. Integration of documentary and field
information presented some difficulties, mainly due to delays in delivery; non
validated material on service coverage and programming; non existing
information and lack of understanding about the means and ways of delivery.
The GIS map is consists of 29 Layers “Land suitable For Urban Development”
is a combination of all previous layers, plus information for land valuation:
present land use; intensity; potential for use in terms of the allowed uses; and
accessibility to infrastructure, among others. In some cases, some information
did not flow and valuation was correspondingly incomplete.

:Future Perspectives of Utilizing GIS to Sustainable Urban Growth .6

Development planning requires an efficient planning approach to achieve the
desired goals and objectives, evaluate alternative as well as control development
.programs that are in line with the current and future perspective
GIS technology has long been applied in planning activities which essentially
.(include plans formulation as well as development control (Johar et al., 2003
The different spatial level and form of plans requires different support in term of
information system. A variety of skills are also required for preparing

Page 10
development plans using GIS. They include the ability to build up and manage the
database which should incorporate socio-economic attributes of the local
population. Managing services at local level would also call for proximity
analysis. On the other hand, cartographic skills are important if plans are to be
demonstrating. It should be noted that successful implementation of GIS for
.sustainable urban and regional planning will largely depend on four factors
Firstly, the automation of the database, it's costly to collect, store and remove
through large quantities of unnecessary data. Therefore, the most cost effective
.approach is to collect only the data required for the specific task
Secondly, data collected either from existing records, aerial photography or
remote sensing imagery will need to be integrated using GIS methods. The GIS
.will be organized to facilitate and analysis
Thirdly, the ability to perform spatial modeling the optional scenarios can be
.generated
Fourthly, application of valid criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of possible
.planning strategies before the final solution is determined
A well-integrated and comprehensive database design, which meets the user
requirements, is part of the important elements that could determine the ultimate
success of a GIS (Chamber, 1989). The GIS database for development planning
:should be designed based on several important considerations which include
The GIS application to be developed •
The need of data for each application •
The availability and format of the existing data •
Size or volume of the database •
Hardware platform and its configuration •
User background •
Organization structure of the users and facilities •
The database development for strategic development plan basically involved
gathering of data, spatial and attribute data entry, and generating of data layers
based on the applications for analyses purposes. Paper maps and remotely sensed
data including satellite data and high-resolution digital orthophotographs are
major sources for collecting digital data. Data gathering was carried out based
on the type of data needed and sources of data. Data entry was then done through
.(interpretation of the data gathered into the required form (Yaakup et al., 2002a
The main objectives of the urban regional development are to stimulate and guide
social and economic development, utilizing the various tools open to it. In the
past, it has been geared to physical planning. More recently, emphasis has shifted

Page 11
to social and economic planning. These two sets of objectives of planning
.agencies have led to two different views of planning approaches of these agencies
Now GIS is the most appropriate solution for supporting the handling of spatial
information throughout the development control and approval process. The advent
of GIS has created a large field of opportunity for the development of new
approaches to computer processing of geographically referenced data obviously
.needed in supporting decision-making process
Some of the important functions include the ability to retrieve information rapidly
and efficiently, model different scenarios and evaluate alternative solutions
generated by various modeling procedures. Hence, a more effective solution to
various spatial-related problems including those associated with planning and
.development matters can be achieved

Conclusion .7
There are a limited number of successive decision had been taken for Upper
Egypt Urbanization and that cause sprawl urbanization across all Upper Egypt
regions, which lead us to an urgent need for a comprehensive GIS-based
.collaborative decision support model
Geographic information technologies possess the potential to provide powerful
support to sustainable urbanizing of Upper Egypt by allowing decision making
with information. A virtual decision making environment is created when based
on GIS, is integrated with other technologies such as mathematical models, expert
systems, virtual reality, to broadcast information for better public participation.
Such an environment can make complex information more easily understandable
to nonspecialist people. GIS-based decision making environments can mould
today’s society by providing efficient public access, and may support
empowerment of the public’s capacity to work with data and to participate in the
discussion of community development initiatives, environmental problems and
.decision making
GIS support community involvement and provide focus for a community’s
discussion of diverse ideas as well as guiding them through the planning and
design process. When combined with a community involvement program, it may
raise awareness of environmental and urban planning problems, design and
.decision making issues and facilitate better communication

Page 12
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