2015 Secondary Cities Projects

Pokhara, Nepal

Project Website - Miles Crane, Chunyao Yang

The Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal is quickly becoming a notorious hotspot for natural disasters. In addition to a serious threat of earthquake, the country is increasingly plagued with sinkholes, floods, landslides, and droughts. In April 2015, for example, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake devastated the country by claiming more than 8,800 lives and damaging or destroying more than 900,000 homes. According to the 2008 Nepal Contingency Report, more than 1,000 people die annually because of natural disasters, and because secondary cities throughout the country are increasing in population density and subsequent poverty, these numbers have great potential to escalate. This study utilizes a suite of GIS data to analyze and identify natural hazards, key infrastructure, and potential refugee evacuation and staging areas within the City of Pokhara, Nepal. The audience for this project is anyone interested in planning and development within the City of Pokhara, emergency response coordination, and planners at the U.S. Embassy located in Kathmandu. This information will also serve as a basis for further research, GIS analysis, and educational activities at CSU and elsewhere.

Davao City, Philippines

Project Website - Peder Engelstad, Chenchen Ma

Davao City, Philippines is one of the largest cities, by land area, in the world and the capital of the Davao Region. The administrative boundaries of Davao City encompass an enormous 2,444 square kilometers. However, most of the 1.45 million citizens live in an urban core on the coast near the mouth of the Davao River, the third largest waterway in the Philippines. Sprawling rural areas to the north and northwest of the urban core are a mix of plantations, cropland, and forest cover. The urbanized areas of Davao City are part of a rapidly expanding tech hub in the southern Philippines known as the "Silicon Gulf". We have acquired and analyzed geospatial data related to Davao City to help identify geospatial data needs and develop policy-supporting map products in the area of emergency preparedness.

Cusco, Peru

Project Website - Corey Herrmann, Josh Eisenberg

Cusco, the "archaeological capital of the Americas", has a historic past that few other cities in the New World can claim. However, Cusco has been experiencing its own massive urban growth in recent decades. Starting in the 1960s, the city began a massive influx of growth, as Hispanic, mestizo, and indigenous groups moved from the countryside to the upper part of the valley and San Jeronimo in the lower valley. This project utilized LANDSAT 5 data from 1984 and LANDSAT 8 data collected in 2015 to conduct a land change detection analysis on the Cusco Valley, and illustrate the rapid urban growth and land use displacement that has occurred in the last thirty years of the city's existence.

Marrakech, Morocco

Project Website - Hailey Wilmer, Christopher Dickey

Marrakech, the capital of the central region of Morocco, Marrakesh-Asfi, is a rapidly growing secondary city with a complex past and uncertain future in terms of natural resource use, social and political change, and economic growth. With a current population of 1.134 people, the city is a popular tourist destination because of the proximity to the Atlas Mountains and a reputation as a hub of culture and artistry. The structure and extent of growth in Marrakesh is shaped by socio-cultural, historical, economic and ecological factors, and has consequences for city dwellers, rural Moroccans, the nation itself and regional dynamics. This growth can be observed on historical maps and in recent satellite images. However, this growth has not been well quantified.

This study aims to explore urban growth in Marrakech, Morocco over two periods of time (1873-1935 and 1986-2015) by analyzing historical maps and satellite imagery with GIS software. This is a preliminary analysis that can inform further geospatial or historical analysis.

Medellín, Colombia

Project Website - Joe Ezell, David Francis

With a population approaching four million people, Medellin is the second largest metropolitan area in Colombia, second only to the national capital of Bogotá. As the capital city of the department of Antioquia, Medellin plays a vital role in regional politics and economics. The city lies in the heart of the Aburra Valley and flanks both sides of the Medellin River. The area is an important hub for manufacturing, agriculture, tourism and higher education (medellininfo.com 2015).

We selected a handful of critical problems to address in our preliminary analysis: population growth, geographical limitations, and water supply. Geographic Information Science (GIS) was used as the principle tool for exploration and topical literature provided context and solidified findings. Using change detection methodology, spatial growth was analyzed from 1986-2015 and referenced to high slope areas. High slope was defined as greater than 25 degrees for landslide risk and less than 30 degrees for suitable construction (Fourniadis, et al. 2007). Population data was acquired and symbolized to show 2015 density across the Medellin metropolitan area. A watershed analysis was completed to identify stream and river networks within the Medellin region and it's in order to highlight hydrologic systems associated with future water availability and utilization.

Mwanza, Tanzania

Project Website - Hamza Taleb, Heather Judd

Mwanza is the second largest city in Tanzania with a population of over 700,000 people. It is located on the southern shores of Lake Victoria in northwestern Tanzania. The Mirongo River, which crosses through the center of Mwanza, has a history of causing frequent severe floods which have damaged homes, roads, and bridges, which resulted in numerous fatalities. The main cause of these floods seems to be not only climate change but also blockage of the river by trash that is commonly dumped along its banks. Continual development of unplanned housing in Mwanza city exacerbates these issues; about 60% of the housing stock in Mwanza city is in unplanned areas and 85% of the households living in these dangerous areas have low income.

Mwanza city has increased vulnerability to disasters in settlements that extend into dangerous areas. The main concerns of the disaster-risk mapping in this study focused on identifying vulnerability to disaster by floods and flash floods in residential areas. By using GIS analytic techniques and remote sensing data, this project will provide maps of watershed, water network, and stream orders in order to identify the areas most vulnerable to serious flooding and flash flooding.

Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana

Project Website - Ezequiel Fernandez Tschieder, Muhammad Usman Zaheer

Sekondi-Takoradi metropolitan is located in strategically important place in Western region of Ghana. It is experiencing a fast change in LULC for reasons chiefly related to converting non-urban areas to urban areas and for economic activities. In this website you will find a change detection analysis performed on the Sekondi-Takoradi. The purpose of this study is to assess the extent of urban growth for the metropolis over a time period of past 29 year.

For this purpose we utilized the Landsat Surface Reflectance data from 1986 and 2015. We plan to determine the areas where urban expansion has happened and to determine the percent change in LULC. In addition, we plan to correlate the presence of health care facilities in the metropolis with the urban expansion and will determine the hot-spots which need the health care facilities to meet the needs of expanding metropolis.

Updated: August 29, 2009 © 2009 All Rights Reserved.
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