Integration of RS, GIS and AHP for Hanoi Peri-Urban Agriculture Planning

Integration of RS, GIS and AHP for Hanoi Peri-Urban Agriculture Planning

Rajesh B. THAPA, MSc.
Specialization: Geography
Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System.
Research Assistant
STAR Program
School of Advanced Technologies
Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand
Tel: +66-2-524-6406
Fax: +66-2-524-5597
Email: rajesh@ait.ac.th

Frederic BORNE, PhD
Specialization: Image Analysis
Image Processing, Texture Analysis
3D Landscape Modeling, Linkage between plant growth modeling and RS/GIS applications
Assistant Professor
CIRAD-France
Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement
Département AMIS, Amélioration des Méthodes pour l’Innovation Scientifique
Programme AMAP, Modélisation de l’Architecture des Plantes

Michiro, KUSANAGI, PhD
Specialization: Aerospace System Engineering
Space System Engineering
Visiting Professor/Coordinator
STAR Program
School of Advanced Technologies
Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand
Tel: +66-2-524-5577
Fax: +66-2-524-5597
Email: kusanagi@ait.ac.th

Pham Van CU, PhD
Specialization: Geomorphology
GIS and Remote Sensing Professor/Director
Institute of Geology
National Center for Sciences and Technology, Vietnam
Tel: +84-4-83-51493
Fax: +84-4-83-59335
Email: phamvancu@hn.vnn.vn

Introduction
The peri-urban areas are heterogeneous in social composition, which is characteristic for fast changing environments (Allen, 2001). Agriculture system in the peri-urban areas are a ‘result’ of migration from rural areas, absorption of former rural enterprises (Bentinck, 2000), urban farmers seeking expansion possibilities in the fringes. Both urban and peri-urban farming systems are highly diverse, and generalizations are difficult to make (Nunan, 2000). Part of the reason for the observed growth in urban and peri-urban agriculture is due to its adaptability and mobility compared with rural agriculture. The speed of urban growth and land use change might raise many problems such as inadequate infrastructure, population and employment pressure, overcrowding, slum occurred from low-income groups, fresh nutrient rich food insecurity and environmental degradation (natural as well as social). The challenge of supplying nutritionally adequate and safe food to city dwellers is substantial. Accomplishing these task under conditions of growth and congestion demands that policy-makers seize opportunities for integrating resource management and planning efforts, understanding potential linkages between rural and urban areas, and anticipating the changing needs of a country’s citizens – both rural and urban (Nugent and Drescher, 2000). Urban food supply (especially fresh nutrient-rich food) increment, employment and income generation, urban environment improvement, global food insecurity reduction and preserving the natural areas are the major contributions of peri-urban agriculture (Borne et al 2003). The sustainable peri-urban agriculture also depends upon market linkages. The market linkage promotes the spatial integration through economic interaction (Rondinelli, 1985). Since the market town is the main channel through which rural people obtain basic goods and services in return for their agricultural products, the impact of the coordination of marketing systems can have widespread effects and provide substantial benefits to the farmer. Therefore peri-urban agriculture needs proper management and development so that it can contribute to the economy, environment and society. Remote sensing is a powerful tool for collection and classification of spatial data whereas GIS is a powerful tool for management and analysis of spatial data (Nualchawee, 1996).

Study Area and objective
Hanoi province is located in Red River delta, the rice bowl of Vietnam after Mekong River delta. The province comprises of seven inner urban districts (Hoan Kiem, Ba Dinh, Hai Ba Trung, Dong Da, Tay Ho, Thanh Xuan and Cau Giay) called Hanoi city (capital of Vietnam) and five surrounding peri-urban districts (Tu Liem in the west, Thanh Tri in the south, Dong Anh and Soc Son in the north and Gia Lam in the east) with agricultural activities (Rossi et al 2002). Furthermore, the province is divided into 229 small administrative units (102 in urban and 127 in peri-urban) called commune. The whole province was selected as a study area. The province spread over about 928km2 area with flat (0.3% slope) topography from northwest to southeast. Because of sunny and tropical weather along with monsoons, the climate is favorable to agricultural development in Hanoi (Thapa, 2003). The population of Hanoi province was 2.81 millions with 3.2% growth rate where 53.56% population were lived in urban area and rest of the 46.44% lived in peri-urban area. The statistics shows the rate of urbanization in Vietnam has been increased from 15% in 1960 to 25% in 2001 and expected to be doubled (32%) in 2015. The economic growth of Hanoi has been rapidly developed at the rate of 11.6% per year during 1991-2000, which was bigger than overall country’s economic growth i.e. 7.5%. Crop, Livestock and Aquaculture are major agriculture system in Hanoi that contributed the 4.5% GDP (HSYB 2001). In order to gain the higher productivity and profitability, the competition between demand and supply of land for different activities are playing crucial role in land use morphology that challenges to Hanoi urban and peri-urban land use/agriculture planners and managers. There is a very essential element called expansion of market linkages in Hanoi have to be considered which is a primary force in commercializing agriculture, diversifying production and expanding the spatial system of exchange. Therefore, the timely updated land use information and major linkage information (physical, social and economical) between peri-urban and urban areas are needed for resources management to get optimum benefit in sustainable manner. An integrated technique of RS, GIS and AHP may be suitable in Hanoi peri-urban agriculture planning. The main objective of this study is to prepare a decision scenario for peri-urban agriculture planners.

Database and methodology
Five parameters, land use, soils, water resource, road and market were setup. A Baseline Survey of Vegetables Market of Hanoi–2003 conducted by SUSPER Project (a consortium with CIRAD, France, RIFAV, Vietnam and AVRDC, Vietnam), Landsat TM image acquired on November 23, 2001, a soil and a topographic map (1:10000) prepared by VTGEO (Vietnamese Institute for Geology) and a Field Survey on July 2003 were used as input of study. ENVI, ArcView and SPSS software were operated to compute the results.

The baseline data was geo-coded and prepared a vegetable market input linkage map as a representation of peri-urban agriculture and its contribution to urban. The land use map was prepared using Landsat TM 30meter resolution image within 90% of accuracy level. The soils map was classified based on Bardy (1974). Rivers and ponds/lakes were extracted from Landsat TM based land use map and used as water resource parameter. Considering different level of water flow motion in rivers and ponds/lakes, the water proximities at aerial distance of 1km, 2km and 3km form rivers and 0.3km, 0.6km and 0.9km from ponds/lakes were computed. Similarly, the aerial distances of 1km, 2km and 3km form road network and 10km, 20km and 30km form market zone were assigned while computing the road and market proximity to peri-urban agriculture areas. Each parameter was further converted into 30meter grid and scaled into Very Good, Good, Fair and Unarable for peri-urban agriculture. The Saaty’s (1990) Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) model was used to identify the priority of the parameters. This model evaluates the consistent weight of each parameter through pair-wise comparison (Canada et al, 1996). The priority index was computed within 0.09 consistency ratio based on primary information collected with the Hanoi subject experts. Each parameter multiplying with their weights were linearly added and scaled into 0 to 3 as Unarable(0), Fair (1), Good (2) and Very Good (3) for peri-urban agriculture. Commune level analysis was carried out in whole peri-urban area. For peri-urban agriculture planning, two maps were prepared at commune level where unarable land classification map presents the distribution status of land and the other map presents the suitability of land to peri-urban agriculture. Both maps can be used as guideline for agriculture planning. The urban districts were excluded while analyzing suitability of peri-urban agriculture.

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