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The use of GIS, GPS and aerial imagery for mapping urban agricultural activities on open space in cities  S. Dongus University of Freiburg Department of Physical Geography Section on Applied Geography of the Tropics and Subtropics (APT) Werderring 4 79085 Freiburg, Germany Email: stefan.dongus@geographie.uni-freiburg.de Web: www.geographie.uni-freiburg.de/ipg/welcome-engl.html Tel. +49 761 203 9126 Fax: +49 761 203 3596  Prof. Dr. Axel Drescher University of Freiburg Department of Physical Geography Section on Applied Geography of the Tropics and Subtropics (APT) Werderring 4 79085 Freiburg, Germany Email: axel.drescher@sonne.uni-freiburg.de Web: www.geographie.uni-freiburg.de/ipg/welcome-engl.html Tel. +49 761 203 3513 Fax: : +49 761 203 3596 Abstract Urban agriculture is a phenomenon that can be observed world-wide, particularly in cities of developing countries. Only little is known about the actual extent of inner city areas used for agricultural purposes, and the spatial distribution of such areas. A methodology for mapping vegetable production on open spaces has been successfully implemented in the city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The mapping procedure comprised analysis of aerial imagery, mapping in the field, and integration of the results into GIS. The basic functions of GIS proved to be a very useful tool, whereas the use of GPS was only necessary in few cases. Integrated in local government and planning processes, the GIS database can contribute to raise public awareness for the situation of urban farmers, help to improve extension services, and can be used by town planners for further analysis and planning purposes. The developed methodology can also be applied in other cities and expanded to other topics of interest. Introduction Urban agriculture, i.e. agriculture in the city or in peri-urban areas, is a phenomenon that can be observed world-wide. This is particularly true for cities of developing countries, where food production for subsistence and marketing contributes to the improvement of livelihoods, food security and urban ecology (Smit et al. 1996, Mougeot 2005). In spite of all ongoing research on urban agriculture, in most of the developing countries’ cities few systematic surveys have been carried out on the actual extent of urban agriculture in terms of inner city areas used for agricultural purposes. Also little is known on the spatial distribution of urban agriculture in the cities. Many questions are still open: Where do urban agricultural activities concentrate and why, who is involved, what kinds of crops are grown and by which groups of city dwellers, which kinds of soils are occupied, how is water availability and quality, what is the distance to markets, are there potential health risks? Furthermore, only few data and knowledge is available regarding the extent, the importance, the development and the output of urban agriculture, as well as and its connection to small enterprise development. In the world-wide context, only very limited experience with the application of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to urban food production activities is available. For Santiago de los Caballeros (Dominican Republic) a GIS based database has been developed by the University of Santiago (Del Rosario et al. 1999). In Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), a mapping of urban and peri-urban agricultural areas has been carried out based on IKONOS satellite imagery (Kemeling 2001). The ‘Resource Center of Urban Agriculture and Food Security’(RUAF) recently conducted mappings of the presence of urban agriculture and available open spaces in six cities: Villa Maria del Triunfo (Lima, Peru); Pikine (Dakar, Senegal); Accra (Ghana); Bulawayo (Zimbabwe); Hyderabad (India); and Beijing (China) (RUAF 2006). To date, the city with the most comprehensive experience in this respect is Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. A survey carried out in 1999 showed that one possible way to close the information gap is to map urban agricultural areas by combining analysis of aerial photographs with field work, and using GIS as a tool (Dongus 2001). Drawing on this work in Dar es Salaam, the authors suggest a procedure to map urban agricultural areas, and explain it with practical examples.
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