GIS  Based  Assessment  of  Selected  Urban  Facilities  and  Utilities  Planning:  

A  Case  of  Nekemte  Town,  Oromia  Region,  Ethiopia  

 

 

 

 

Tadele  Feyissa  

 

 

Paper  Submitted  to    

Global  Geospatial  Conference  2013  

UNECA  Conference  Center  

 

 

 

Addis  Ababa,  Ethiopia  

 

 

November  4-­‐8,  2013    

 

 

 

 

 

 

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ABSTRACT GIS Based Assessment in Urban Facilities and Utilities Planning: A Case of Nekemte Town, Oromia Region, Ethiopia

Tadele Feyissa

Addis Ababa University, 2013

This project is mainly concerned on GIS based assessment in urban facilities and utilities planning in Nekemte town, Oromia Region, Ethiopia. Application of GIS technology in urban facilities and utilities planning has recently absorbed attention and has a power of assessing already installed urban physical settings in harmony with demographic, spatial, local development plan and service demand directives. Keeping in the view of importance of GIS in urban planning, the study was conducted in Nekemte town where road transportation, water supply and consumption for domestics use and accessibility to fixed line telephone are characterized by shortfalls. The general objectives of the study is to create geodatabase for urban transport facilities, water supply lines and fixed telephone lines utilities, and to show their spatial arrangement by employing GIS technology. Specifically, the study is designed to create GIS database for road transportation network that enable to evaluate the existing network system in the study area, to show applications of GIS in urban utilities planning, to evaluate accessibility of water supply distribution using GIS in the study area and to analyze the spatial arrangement of fixed line telephone accessibility. Data for this project were obtained from CSA, Nekemte municipality, Ethio-telecom, and Oromia Water, Mineral and Energy Bureau. Documents attached to geospatial data as an attribute were obtained from East Wallaga zone Finance and Economic Development office, and Nekemte town Water, Mineral and Energy office. The collected data in CAD feature and raster image were georeferenced in ArcGIS environment and documents used throughout the analysis were adjusted to .dbf format to fit ArcGIS 10.1. Global Mapper 14.1 was used to indicate terrain patterns of the study area. The project revealed that GIS is a powerful tool to create geospatial database that help to address where shortages of urban facilities are prevailing. Accordingly, shortages of road networking in different corners of the town particularly away from the center flushed. The spatial distribution of water supply pipe lines was evaluated in terms of serviceability and significant parts of the town remained uncovered. The study also showed the outlying residential areas of the town have no access to fixed line telephone convenience. Therefore, the Nekemte municipality and other stake holders can use GIS technology for better utility management and planning. There is a need to construct road including Arterial Street, Collector Street and paved street. Extra water supply pipes and fixed telephone line expansion to distant new residential areas is also recommended to satisfy the existing demand.

Key words: GIS, Urban Planning, assessment, road network, water supply, fixed line telephone.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am heartily thankful to AfricaGIS who gave me a chance to present this document on

Global Geospatial Conference UNECA Conference Center, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

It is a pleasure for me to thank Negesu Tita and Jira Kusa for their humor and cheery

encouragement, and unlimited cooperation that made this project possible. They have

been marvelous. My warmest appreciation also goes to Lamesa Amante for his constant

wise encouragement and faithful support.

My gratitude overflows to Nekemte Municipality, ethio-telecom and Oromia Water,

Mineral and Energy Bureau for their providing various data used in the project.

Lastly, I offer my regards and blessings to Tarik Asaye and Fisaha Semaw who supported me in sharing ideas.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iii    

Table of contents

Contents

Pages List of Figures...............................................................................................................................v

List of Tables.............................................................................................................................. vi

Acronyms ................................................................................................................................. vii

Definition of Terms .................................................................................................................. viii

Chapter 1 Introduction...........................................................................................................1

1.1 Background of the Study ................................................................................1

1.2 Statement of the Problem ...............................................................................2

1.3 Objectives of the Project ................................................................................4

1.4 Project Questions............................................................................................4

1.5 Significance of the Study................................................................................4

1.6 Scope of the Project........................................................................................5

1.7 Structure of the Project...................................................................................5

1.8 Limitation of the Study...................................................................................5

Chapter 2                    Review Of Related Literature ..............................................................................6

2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................6

2.2 GIS and Transportation ..................................................................................7

2.3 Application of GIS In Water Supply Utilization............................................8

2.4 Application Of GIS In Telecommunication ...................................................9

Chapter 3 Description of the Study Area and Research Methodology................................11

3.1 Description of the Study Area ......................................................................11

3.1.1 Location.....................................................................................................11

3.1.2 Historical Background of Nekemte Town.................................................12

                                                           3.1.3 Relief .................................................................................................................13  

                              3.1.4 Climate ...............................................................................................................14  

` 3.1.5 Land Land Cover of Nekemte Town.........................................................15

3.1.6 Population and Socio-Economic Characteristics of the Town..................15

  3.1.6.1 Population.......................................................................................................16  

  3.1.6.2 Age Composition...........................................................................................17  

3.1.7 Transportation............................................................................................18

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3.1.8 Water Utility..............................................................................................19

3.1.10 Electric Power .........................................................................................20

3.1.11 Telephone ................................................................................................20

3.1.10 Education.................................................................................................20

3.1.11 Health Services........................................................................................21

3.2 Research Methodology.................................................................................21

3.2.1 Data Source ...............................................................................................21

  3.2.2 Software Used in the Analysis ........................................................................22  

  3.2.3 Georeferencing and Changing Format ...........................................................23  

  3.2.4 Network Analyses ............................................................................................25  

Chapter 4 Results and Discussion......................................................................................27

4.1 Road Network Analysis................................................................................27

4.1.1 Setting Up Street Geodatabase ..................................................................27

4.1.2 Best Route Analysis ..................................................................................28

4.1.3 Closest Facility Analysis ...........................................................................30

4.1.4 Service Area Analysis ...............................................................................32

4.1.5 Proximity to Road Network Analysis........................................................36

4.1.6 Evaluation of Road Network in Nekemte Town .......................................37

4.2 Nekemte Water Supply Network Coverage .................................................44

4.2.1 Source of Water Supply.............................................................................44

4.2.2 Nekemte Water Supply..............................................................................45

  4.2.3 Water Production, Distribution and Consumption in Nekemte .................46  

4.2.4 Water Meter Connection to Households ...................................................47

  4.3 Nekemte Fixed Line Telephone Distribution ...................................................50  

Chapter 5 Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations.................................................55

5.1 Summary.......................................................................................................55

5.2 Conclusion....................................................................................................56

5.3 Recommendations ........................................................................................57

References

Appendices  

v    

List of Figures

Fig 3.1 Administrative Units of Nekemte Town........................................................................11 Fig. 3.2 Terrain patterns of Nekemte town (a) and distribution of surface slope(b)..................14 Fig 3.3 Dense forests following roads........................................................................................15 Fig. 3.4 3D Mapping of pop. number and pop. density based on 2007 Pop. Census................16 Fig. 3.5 Population pyramid of Nekemte town ..........................................................................18 Fig. 3.6 Partial view of traffic congestion in Nekemte town......................................................19 Fig. 3.7 The road-map of georeferencing process......................................................................23 Fig. 3.8 Conceptual framework ..................................................................................................23 Fig. 4.1 Network Modeling ........................................................................................................29 Fig 4.2 Best route analysis by considering different origins and destinations. ..........................30 Fig. 4.3 Closest major hotel facilities mapping to selected areas...............................................31 Fig. 4.4 Education closest facility mapping ...............................................................................32 Fig.4.5 Service area analysis of Nekemte hospital shown by concentric zones.........................33 Fig. 4.6 Major health service area analysis with different cutoff cost. ......................................34 Fig. 4.7 Recreation service area analysis with different time cutoff cost...................................36 Fig. 4.8 proximity analysis .........................................................................................................37 Fig. 4.9. Nekemte’s street pattern...............................................................................................38 Fig. 4.10 Land use type populated following transportation route.............................................39 Fig. 4.11 High concentration of services and facilities following the main route......................40 Fig.4.12 Partial view of Nekemte street problem captured during field observation.................40 Fig.4.13 Nekemte Road network system...................................................................................41 Fig. 4.14 Triangulated Irregular Network (a) and slope (b) of Netemte town ...........................43 Fig. 4.15 Discrepancies of water supply coverage and areas require water utility. ...................44 Fig.4.16 sources of drinking water for Nekemte town...............................................................45 Fig. 4.17 Suspended impurities in the water ..............................................................................46 Fig. 4.18 Private water meter connections in each sub city .......................................................47 Fig. 4.19 Number of households obtain water from a various sources by each sub city ...........48 Fig. 4.20 Number of water meter connections per number of households per sub city.............49 Fig. 4.21 Number shared water connection to household by each sub city ...............................49 Fig. 4.22 Distribution of Multi-service access gateway and optical fiber cable installations ...51 Fig.4.23 fixed telephone network distribution in 3D environment ............................................52 Fig. 4.24 Distribution of terminal points (a) and CCC (b) ........................................................52 Fig 4.25 Modeling line fixed telephone coverage for identifying areas require attention .........53 Fig 4.26 Fixed line telephone network coverage for identifying areas require attention...........54

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List of Tables

Table 3.1 Trends of population size and growth rate of the study area................................... 16

Table 3.2 Population distributions by administrative units, 2007.......................................... 17

Table 3.3 Availability of transportation in the town .......................................................... 19

Table 3. Schools /Education centers in Nekemte .............................................................. 20

Table 3.4 shows the type of data used in the project. ......................................................... 22

Table 4.1 Production and Consumption of water in Nekemte Town...................................... 47

Table 4.2 Demand and services of fixed telephone line in Nekemte Town ............................. 50  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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List of Acronyms  

CAD Computer Aided Drafting

CCC Cross Connection Cabinet

CSA Central Statistical Authority

CSV Character Separated Value

dbf database format

EPRDF Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front

ESRI Environmental Sciences Research Institute

GIS Geographic Information Systems

GPS Geographic Positioning Systems

IWRA International   Water   Resources   Association

MDG Millennium Development Goal

MoFED Ministry of Finance and Economic Development

MSAG Multi-Service Access Gateway

NULGSP Nekemte Urban Local Government Strategic Plan

OFED Oromia Finance and Economic Development

tiff tagged image file format

UTM Universal Transverse Mercator

WGS World Geodetic System

wld world file for CAD

viii    

Definition of Terms

 Kebele is the smallest administrative unit of local government in Ethiopia

Sefer is the Amaharic word equivalent to quarter

Sefer shume is Amaharic word to mean person appointed to lead quarter

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

GIS technology has reached maturity. The world has a long history of GIS application in

planning and resource management dating back to the mid-1960s. The diffusion of GIS into

the planning sphere has continued at remarkable rate (Sutton etal, 2007). This is because GIS

manage large spatial and non-spatial data with a unique valuable application for policy makers

in area of urban planners. The application of GIS in spatial planning support tools have an

important advantage through changing the valuation standards to visually illustrate and depict

where the implications of different spatial decisions and alternatives are convenient. The

capabilities needed for decision making readily available in a single system make GIS a great

tool for integrating in planning processes (ESRI, 2011).

Thematic mapping of various utilities and facilities of urban areas through overlay analysis of

different data layers can involve synthesizing and manipulating of spatial layers one to each

other and structured query of the data often leading to new layers of data. These cultivate

fertile grounds for planners to use GIS technology to research, develop, implement and assess

the progress of their plans. GIS is being used as a platform to help planners reach their goals of

creating livable communities and improving the overall quality of life while protecting the

environment and promoting economic development (Robert, 2009).

GIS provides planners, surveyors and engineers with the tools they need to design their

cities/towns. Urban utility and facility planners as a technical expertise in fiscal understanding

to transform a vision of tomorrow into strategic action plan for today, they have to use GIS

just before facilitate the decision making process (Anavberokhai, 2008). Integrated GIS model

can also be used by planners for the design of telecommunication line, water supply line and

transportation routing as part of the service providing. In addition GIS offers opportunity to

assess these utilities planning and automate time-consuming processes with especial ability of

optimizing the output in terms of quality, documentation, visualization and time (Kaousias,

2004).

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Given the longevity and rate of growth of GIS in planning sphere, the field is not sufficiently

well established in Ethiopia to allow meaningful trends, assessment, evaluation and direction to

be reviewed. Meaning working with the technology of GIS at the local level particularly at less

developed nations like Ethiopia is not shining. Even though using GIS benefits local

government in the area of increasing efficiency, improving accuracy, automating tasks, and

increasing access to government, there was no considerable room set to GIS for managing

urban utilities in Ethiopia in general and Nekemte town in particular.

It is on this ground that the study employed GIS technology to improve public access to

information and facilitate GIS based assessment in urban facilities and utilities planning in

Nekemte town which may contribute for policy making process.

1.2 Statement of the problem

Among main challenges facing urban centers particularly those in the developing countries is

how to provide adequate level of public infrastructure and services for growing urban

population. Many problems prevailing in urban areas are linked to lack and unsustainable use

of one or more urban utilities (MWehe, 2011). The recommendations of the MDG Africa

Steering Group in 2008 clearly indicated that the sub-Saharan Africa is not only characterized

by lack of transport, power, communication networks, water, and other infrastructural services

but also not carefully installed programs that poses ever constraints on economic growth and

expansion of poverty (MDG, 2008). Likewise sources indicate that there is poor access to safe

drinking water supplies and other utilities in Ethiopia (MoFED, 2005).

Multifaceted problems are attributed to weak urban planning, inefficient urban management,

and possibly ignorance of service consumers by the local authorities. Attaining urban utilities

sustainability for the urban population is therefore a major challenge for urban managers and

indeed a top agenda and priority set to meet needs of the society. The problem can be fixed by

digital computing technologies like GIS that has a tremendous force on revolution of urban

utility planning. GIS is powerful to create spatial visualization and assess the area's urban built

conditions and social networks and it is proved to be essential in creating a sustainable

planning tool (strategy) and for designing a development that fit both constructions and social

needs within specified site (Su, 2003).

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Urban utilities and facilities planners require solutions that address day-to-day work needs

while also fostering the ability to effectively predict and respond to chronic urban problems.

The success of planners in combating chronic urban problems is largely determined by their

ability to utilize effective tools and planning support systems that allow them to make informed

decisions based on actionable intelligence. Nowadays, urban planners make use of GIS in a

variety of applications. GIS tools provide the necessary planning platform for visualization,

modeling, analysis, and making relationship (ESRI, 2011).

The first step for most communities in planning for urban utilities is assessment that usually

seeks to determine the extent of existing urban utilities and infrastructure, and the location of

potential customers. GIS based assessment can therefore reveal a deficiency in supply relative

to the predictable demand for urban utilities and can be used to design scenarios for bridging

the gap (Peery, 2004).

On this ground GIS based assessment of urban utilities and facilities survey is exceedingly

important since it deliver grant access to valuable information for evidence based policy

making as well as planning, monitoring and evaluating programs. Many cities/towns in

Ethiopia face immense challenges in its land-use planning that stem from the fact that almost

many thousands of people live and work within slums, congested areas, lacking of basic urban

utilities and facilities. Given its unfavorable working and life conditions, it is important to

carefully plan for the economic growth and future development of towns. That's why urban

renewal program repeatedly counseled municipalities to rely on GIS to find new ways to

minimize development constraints (Mathewos etal, 2011). These problems have been deep-

rooted in Nekemte town for long period of time (OFED, 2010) and the problems attached to

the issue should be addressed quickly. Besides the town lacks geographic databases that help

for planning. Therefore, there is an urgent need to carry research on the existing problem

compatible to GIS environment, which are considered to be useful for better planning and

management. If not the competitiveness of the town is remains under question and a bottleneck

for local managers. To tackle the prevailing problems, this project developed spatial and non-

spatial database in GIS environment and showed where shortage of utilities and poor public

transport system need immediate interventions.

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In fitting together with this, it is recovering for urban facilities planners to use GIS so as to

manage geographic data about lacking utilities and facilities to show relationships and other

attributes that affect urban community. This will greatly enhance efficiency and facilitate urban

utilities planning operation of public facilities within the town.

1.3 Objectives of the project The general objective of the project is to develop geodatabase for urban transport facilities,

water supply lines and fixed line telephone utilities, and to show their spatial arrangement by

employing GIS technology.

The specific objectives of the project are:

to create GIS database for road transportation network that enable to evaluate the

existing network system in the study area.

to show applications of GIS in urban utilities planning.

to evaluate accessibility of water supply distribution using GIS in the study area

to analyze and map the spatial arrangement of fixed line telephone accessibility.

1.4 Project questions Is there well developed and connected transportation network system in the study area?

Is the distribution of water pipelines in the town accessible to every households?

How the GIS environment can be used to analyze spatial arrangement of urban

utilities?

How can the GIS techniques be involved in the process of fixed line telephone

distribution assessment?

1.5 Significance of the study GIS now supports various basic and advanced spatial analytic approaches in public facilities

planning. GIS can be used even more than to generate maps showing where various urban

facilities exist, but also with extensive use of GIS technology in the field of water pipeline and

telecommunication distribution environment simulation, and integration of data operation and

spatial analysis, becoming important basis for urban infrastructure planning. Planners and

engineers can use this spatial information to make decisions about zoning designations and

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building documents. The installation and operation of public facilities, like waterline,

transportation and telephone line involve important amounts of spending, and therefore need to

be carefully planned. It must be recognized, however, in Ethiopia that the practical impact of

the efforts made up to now is pathetic. Therefore this project presented an interactive, user-

friendly decision-support tool for urban facilities planning where the capabilities of GIS and

AutoCAD data are put together. This can contributed to bridge the gap between research and

practice that characterizes the way urban services and facilities planning is made at present.

1.6 Scope of the project This project work was concentrated on mapping, analysis and management of urban

transportation facilities, telephone lines and water supply in GIS environment, in Nekemte

town. The time horizon of the data used for the study was in touch to 2007 to 2012. Other

aspects of the aforementioned utilities are not the concern of the researcher because these are

not economically and timely feasible as per the academic year.

1.7 Structure of the Project

This project is organized into five chapters. Chapter one dedicated to Introduction. Chapter two

is Review of Related Literature. Chapter three contains Description of the Study Area and

research Methodology. Chapter four dedicated to Analysis and finally chapter five contains

Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations which bring all the arguments together.

1.8 Limitation of the study

Although this research was carefully prepared, it is still need to aware of its limitations. There were

unavoidable limitations. Because of time limit the study only confined to the analysis of three

entities of the town services including road network, water supply and fixed line

telecommunication coverage. This may not reflect the overall picture of assessment of urban

facilities and utilities situation of the study area. Second the fixed line telephone data variables

were crude to carry accessibility assessment against households. This made difficult to identify the

number connection made to households and consequently limited the study to proximity analysis.

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CHAPTER TWO

 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 Introduction It is wise to have a brief overview of GIS before exploring its applications. Accordingly, many

scholars considered the definitions, components and historical development of GIS. In 1950s

GIS was developed to produce maps. Currently GIS technology has evolved and grown its

objectives are expanding. As the result different definitions of GIS have been pop up. The

major definition given to GIS is organized collection of computer hardware, software,

geographic data, and personnel designed to efficiently capture, store, update, manipulate,

analyze, and display all forms of geographically referenced data (ESRI, 2010). Generally GIS

can be considered as an integrated system of computer hardware, software, and trained

personnel linking topographic, demographic, socio-economic, utility, facility, image and other

resource data that is geographically referenced. Its objective is to improve overall decision

making by visualizing data and seeing new patterns. GIS technology integrates common

database operations such as query and statistical analysis with the unique visualization and

geographic analysis benefits offered by maps (Haywood et al, 1998). Therefore, GIS has

become to symbolize a technology, an industry, a way of doing spatial work. It has come to

promise a new world of disciplinary and professional integration. GIS allows mapping,

modeling, and displaying large quantities of diverse data, all held together within a single

database. Its power and appeal stem from its ability to integrate quantities of spatial

information and non-spatial information about the environment and the wide repertoire of tools

it provides to explore the diverse data (Chrisman, 1999).

Generally, GIS is all about the organized activity by which people measure aspects of

geographic phenomena and processes; represent computer database to establish spatial themes,

entities and relationships; operate upon feature representations to produce more measurements

and to discover existing relationships by integrating different sources; and transform these

representations to confirm other frameworks of entities and relationship. Therefore the

components of GIS include software, hardware, technology, people and data (Haywood et al,

1998).

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2.2 GIS and Transportation The urban road network plays a key function in the urban spatial structure. Currently many

researches are interested to look into road network analysis. However one of the most

significant problems attributed to urban spatial analysis is how to evaluate the accessibility of

road network. It is good news that GIS takes care of spatial analysis method on road network

assessment with GIS inbuilt algorithms technology. In the last decade, the GIS have brought

tremendous advances and development on the basis of technological software, methods and

data models. Among these applications that have attracted much attention in the use of GIS is

transportation sector mainly for planning, public transport routing, management and operation

(Robert, 2009). GIS is highly suitable means of technology for processing transportation

information and can examine planning and management (Maria and Ruiz, 2003). Yao (2006)

ratify that GIS has come to stay and there is no doubt that it is an efficient and effective tool in

the transportation infrastructure planning of the transport industry. This led for drafting of

unified or universal GIS for transportation standard data models in the sphere of transportation

application.

GIS fits the need for efficient spatial data handling and analytical capability in both micro and

macro level of urban transportation planning. Choosing sites, targeting market segments,

planning distribution networks and responding to emergencies are all problems that involve

questions of geography and are all relevant to businesses and the government. The extent to

which GIS is transforming planning is paramount for the prime reason that it revolutionizing

the traditional method of spatial data handling and manipulation (Harris and Elmes, 1993;

Sarkar, 2007).

The most important and familiar implementations of network analysis models in GIS

environment are those used to represent the networks with which much of the population

interacts every day includes transportation, water distribution and communications networks.

Currently, implemented network GIS tools are largely dominated by routing functions. Routing

is the act of measuring a course of travel, and it is possibly the most fundamental logistical

operation in network analysis. The main objectives in routing across networks are to minimize

the cost of the route that can be measured in a function of distance, time, or impedance in

crossing the network. Shortest path routing has been fully integrated into GIS software

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packages. Current standard network analysis package has four fundamental functions that can

be performed route finding algorithms. These functions incorporate finding a route between

point locations, determining the service area for a facility, finding the closest facility across the

network and creating an origin–destination matrix (Maria and Ruiz, 2003). Consequently the

determination of a service area for a facility can be done by finding the shortest path from the

facility to the demand points on the network, and allocating demand points or the associated

network locations to their nearest facility (Curtin, 2007).

2.3 Application of GIS in Water Supply Utilization Drinking water supply assessment in urban and suburban regions is one of the key issues of

sustainable economic development. Many of the urban utilities like water mains, streets,

sewer lines, were planned and constructed based on the population distribution and economic

development at the time of establishment. Consequently, the infrastructures and utilities may

encounter stress or potential stress as the impact of spatial patterns of population distribution

and economic development changes with time. GIS is now opening the window to manage the

things holistically. GIS is used in water line planning (instead of CAD formerly the preferred

software) for many reasons including: mainly it has ability to store many attributes which can

be used for analysis or labeling; the spatial context of each feature, ease of including data from

many sources and modeling capabilities. Data sources can be CAD, GIS, paper maps and

drawings, reports, hydraulic models, tables, databases, work order systems, and imagery. Data

forms can be raster (images) and vector (point, line, and polygon). GIS is compatible with

different software including CAD, Excel, Access, and SPSS. A list of addresses can be

geocoded, assigning points at each address location, to provide a spatial context for the data

available in work orders, lab data, and other reports (Sheldon etal, 2008). Integrating GIS

database can provide utility managers reliable and scientific support decision making on water

distribution network management and rehabilitation (Soakodan et al., 2011).

Water distribution systems are considered looped networks because they are designed to

provide a continuous flow of pressurized water throughout the network. Urban drinking water

supply network is made of over ground and underground intake, pumping, improving the

quality of the water, storage and transport to the user’s connections in GIS environment

(Pandure, 2006). The GIS water utilities modeling is designed for water that manages different

complex systems like ability to service many thousands to many millions of people. By

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providing a geographically referenced view of water network analysis, GIS software

particularly ArcGIS aids in visualizing and understanding real-world engineering and business

problems. Built using object component technology, ArcGIS provides a powerful new platform

for water utility solutions. The object technology at the center of ArcGIS integrates data and

application characteristics of modeling. As a result, the model not only includes an essential set

of water object classes and properties, it also includes rules and relationships that define object

behaviors. The core object technology and applied water model result in significantly less

configuration and customization effort for overall implementation per site (Grise et al., 2001).

Population explosion and resulting demand of appropriate infrastructure facilities are posing

serious challenges for the administrators and planners. Technology has emerged with solution

of sustaining data on existing utilities. Obviously, effective management and planning requires

updated maps and information and recent developments in the area of Science and Technology

like GIS, GPS and remote sensing have come up with powerful tools. These advanced

technologies can very effectively be used to handle the present day complex problems related

to optimum utilization of available resources and infrastructure. Today it is possible to produce

accurate mapping of the underground infrastructure facilities like electrical &

telecommunication cables and water pipelines (Rana, 2011).

GIS is applied in the entire lifespan of water supply systems from planning to implementation

operation and maintenance to replacement for the prime reason that GIS provides a variety of

support in asset inventory (Keeping record of pipes, valves fittings, and meters together with

their characteristics and status); determining and prioritizing repair and replacement works;

and closing valves to redirect water flow (Soakodan etal., 2011). It has been proved that GIS is

a competent and effective tool for managing networks (Zhang, 2006).

2.4 Application of GIS in Telecommunication ESRI Software Company developed ArcGIS software to provide a common platform for

integrating spatial data with information from existing support software. Network providers

become more efficient when they use ArcGIS to analyze infrastructure and operations. Using

ArcGIS, companies can analyze large portions of data when there is a direct correlation

between capital costs and distance. The spatial perspective offers new ways to understand

service areas and satisfy customers. In the worldwide telecommunications industry is moving

10    

rapidly, resulting in tough competition and an ever-increasing scope of services offered to

customers. On the other side our world is changing rapidly. The problem of understanding the

true picture of places even localities has been elevated from time to time. Likewise solving

problems of a telecommunications company requires a good understanding of where their

customers and facilities exist and information about those locations. A GIS can integrate

location-based data from databases all over the world to help people resolve and streamline

everyday business issues. GIS is a plat form for exploring and describing our geography. An

efficient, accessible telephone line network inventory system has been implemented using

ArcGIS database and GIS based solution deliver a comprehensive management and reporting

system as well as powerful business intelligence tools. The technology allows

telecommunication to generate the maps and integrate detailed community information to

create a picture of communication and local development potential (ESRI, 2009).

GIS is a spatial analytical tool that allows the assessment of the telecommunications

infrastructure for policy and investment analysis. Telecommunication networks are inherently

spatial systems (Hepworth, 1987). The application of GIS in the domain of telecommunication

is an evolving technology compared with traditional information collecting and evaluating

database systems which is sorting, analyzing and also illustrating. The assignment of designing

and planning the blueprint of a telecommunications network may fall to existing

telecommunications providers, third-party consultants, or the community itself. At large GIS

offers the network planner a powerful solution for simultaneously managing the physical

location of the infrastructure, the attribute data associated with infrastructure components, and

the cost of such components in a single environment (Imamoglu-TAN, 2009).

Telecommunications infrastructure development is a process of spatial interaction and mutual

growth between infrastructure and demands. Geographical information systems with their

powerful data handling and spatial analysis capabilities are ideal for meeting the information

needs of telecommunications infrastructure development. Telecommunication is the most

profound and important spatial structure opting large spatial data integration and management.

Successful network expansion and the available network management require significant GIS

analysis and modeling (Cai, 2002).

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CHAPTER THREE  

DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AREA AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY  

3.1 Description of the Study Area 3.1.1 Location

 

Nekemte town is found in Oromia national regional state, Ethiopia. The geographical location of

the town is extended over 9002’47”N to 9006’56” N latitudes and 36028’53”E to 36036’40”E

longitudes. It is located at a distance of 331 km west of Addis Ababa city, 293.7 km southwest of

Bahir Dar town, 110 km northeast of Gimbi town and 250 km northwest of Jima town. Nekemte

is circumscribed by Jiregna, Kitesa, Fayinera, Dune Kane, Nagasa and Gari kebeles of Guto Gida

district in the north, west, south and northeast side and Gute and Dalo Komto kebeles of Wayu

Tuka district in east sides. Nekemte town is now administratively divided into six sub units: Kaso,

Bakanisa Kese, Chalalaki, Burqa Jato, Darge and Bake Jama. The town linearly stretches over

14.2 km from east to west, mainly along the Addis Ababa to Assosa highway and 7.7 km from

north to south.

 

Fig 3.1 Administrative Units of Nekemte Town  

 

12    

3.1.2 Historical Background of Nekemte Town    Nekemte town is one of the old towns in Ethiopia, established in the mid-19th century. Now a

day’s Nekemte is zonal town established as separate administration town in western Ethiopia.

It is one of urban reform centers. Following the enactment of the Oromiya urban local

government proclamation no. 65/1995, Nekemte is designated as grade II urban center and

given urban local government status. It is located in East Wallaga Zone of Oromia region at a

distance of 331 km west of Addis Ababa (Oromia, 1997).

The town first emerged as administrative capital of Leqa Nekemte Empire in 1865, and then

continued to serve as political, cultural, social and economic center of Wallaga in its history

(Alemu, 2002). Since its establishment the town has showed significant socio-economic and

spatial changes. Emergence of modern systems in education, health and other urban services

can be considered as tangible evidence. Furthermore construction of stone paved roads,

expansion of modern schools, health facilities and introduction of telecommunication, postal

and motorized transport services in the first half of the 20th century laid important foundation

for Nekemte town growth. More importantly, the construction of the first Nekemte hospital in

1932 and Addis Ababa to Nekemte primary road had promoted Nekemte into an important

urban center (OFED, 2010).  

Following the restoration of the Ethiopian government in 1941(i.e. after Italian occupation),

Nekemte appeared as capital of Wallaga province and as the result new administrative

system was installed. Consequently, the town was divided into three major quarters (i.e

sefer). Each section of administrative unit was administered by Sefer Shum who is accountable

for a chief administrative of the town called yemazegaja bet Shum. When Derge takeover

power in 1974, Nekemte restructured its governance system as any other urban centers in

Ethiopia did. While continuing to appoint chief administrators for the municipality, the new

government required that the old Sefer Shum system of administration was replaced by a new

level of administration system called the “kebele”, at local level. At that time each sections of

administrative unit was ruled by kebele system. The other reformation observed in the Derg

regime was the opening of several large scale state farms in the immediate hinterland of

Nekemte town that considerably elevated Nekemte’s economy. These schemes did not only

create a lot of job opportunities for Nekemte’s population but also they facilitated the growth of

13    

trade and various forms of urban catering facilities. These conditions attracted many people to

Nekemte and continuously accelerated population growth that result spatial expansion came to

realistic ( Endalkachew, 2008; Shumet, 1988). After the EPRDF, current ruling party of

Ethiopia, seizure of power in 1991 Nekemte also experienced speedy population growth even

up to 5.07% and spatial sprawl (CSA, 1996).

In general, in its history, Nekemte has gone through spontaneous development paths.

Although it had got its first master plan in 1967, this plan was hardly implemented until

detail percolation was prepared by the then Ministry of Urban Development and Housing in

1980 (NULGSP, 1996). This means, Nekemte has sprawled to its current size without

proper planning guides and consequently, major parts of the town are built without basic

urban amenities such as access to road, drainage & sewerage facilities, open public spaces,

water, telephone, electricity and others. The town now possesses a university, 8 colleges

including nongovernmental, 1 3 banks, and 4 insurance companies, numerous health

facilities and considerable number of business establishments. Currently one can see

construction boom on the sides of its major streets being increasingly flanked by several

modern buildings. Besides, Wallaga International Stadium and Nekemte referral hospital

projects are underway.

3.1.3 Relief  

Nekemte has been built up on rugged terrain that its elevation ranges from 1960 to 2190 masl

dominated by steep slope and low lying areas. Gentle slope with 0-2% ranges accounts only

for 3.4% area coverage while slope of greater than 20% covers about 25% of total land

coverage of the study area. Comprehensive terrain patterns of the study area are portrayed in

Figure 3.2.

 

 

 

 

 

 

14    

 

 

 

 

             

(a) (b)

Fig. 3.2 Terrain patterns of Nekemte town in 3D (a) and distribution of surface slope(b)  

As it is clearly visualized from Figure 3.2 (a) Nekemte has fragmented topographic

morphology. Uniform slopes hardly exist. Small pockets of plain lands are found here and

there along with steep or rugged landscape. Thus, every neighborhood of the places within the

boundary is characterized by a typical feature of broken landscape which is inconvenient for

different construction including road network construction.

3.1.4 Climate  

Based on local climatic classification, Nekemte is grouped under semi-humid climatic zones.

As meteorological data has shown that the annual mean average temperature of the town

for consecutive for five years is around 200c and the maximum temperature reaches up to

31.50c in February. The amount of rainfall recorded in the town varies from one month to

other. Generally, June, July, August and September are months which receive high rainfall in

a year. See the following graph.

 

 

 

 

 

15    

3.1.5 Land use land cover of Nekemte town  Nekemte experiences the concentration and mix of many land use zones at one point. The

traditional zoning, street network, market and related function and the unprotected urban green

system are the commonly observed urban land uses types. The central area of Nekemte is

predominantly covered by commercial activities that range from retailing small items up to

providing commercial function like banks, insurances and offices. Inefficient utilization of land

use has been also observed in many parts of the town. Large and in some cases dense trees are

found following roads in many parts of the study area. There was no consistency arrangement

of land use in the town. As shown in Figures 3.3 very dense forests found in between houses

and around 20 meters from highway roads near Wollega University area.

Fig 3.3 Dense forests following roads

The distribution of land use and land cover classification of the study area indicated that

about 50% of the total area was covered by forest followed by built up areas which was

accounted for 25%. The least land use types of the study area was water bodies which is

nearly 0.3% of the total land cover of the town.

3.1.6 Population and socio-economic characteristics of the Nekemte town Important activities of a given society are governed by socio-economic and demographic

characteristics. Therefore having good insight about socio-economic and demographic

character is highly relevant for the study. It is useful for formulating various development

plans and evaluating purpose.

16    

3.1.6.1 Population  

The three population and housing censuses conducted at national level in 1984, 1994 and 2007

have resulted in population size of 28703, 47100 and 75219, respectively. The current (2013)

population projection of the town is calculated to be 96,280. The inter-censal population

growth rates ranges from 4.1% to 5.07% while the overall population growth rate is calculated

to be 4.27%, using GR% =  tPopulation  of  1984Population  of  2007−1  X100%  

Where GR – Growth rate

t- the time interval between 1984 and 2007 population Census

Table 3.1 Trends of population size and growth rate of the study area

* Projection Source: CSA, 1984; 1994; 2007                              

 

Fig. 3.4 3D mapping of pop. number and population density by sub city based on 2007 Pop. Census

Year Population size Growth rate (%) 1984 28,703 4.1 1994 47, 100 5.07 2007 75,219 4.2 2013* 96,280

17    

The 3D cored stepped statistical surface shows variation in population density while erected

cylindrical bar stands for total population of each administrative division of the town. The

study area as it is indicated in above administratively subdivided into six units, namely Bake

Jama, Darge, Keso, Bakanisa Kese, Chalalaki and Burqa Jato. When the enumeration made in

2007 results is presented by sub city shows that there are significant variations in the

distribution of population by these administrative units. As revealed on the 3D environment in

Figure 3.4, large portions of the town’s population number was found in Darge sub city

followed by Bakanisa Kese and Chalalaki. The lowest proportion (i.e 8063 population) was

found in Bake Jama sub city. However, as can be seen from the above map the population

density of Nekemte town ranges from 467 person per sq. km for Bake Jama the least

population density to 4665 person per sq. km for Bakanisa Kese which is the most densely

populated (see Table 3.2).

Table 3.2 Population distributions by administrative units, 2007

S.No Sub city Population House Hold

House unit

Area(in km2)

Density (Population per km2)

1 Bake Jama 8063 3997 3859 17.269 466.906 2 Darge 14967 3887 3723 6.096 2455.217 3 Burqa Jato 13274 3695 3601 17.403 762.742 4 Bakanisa Kese 14793 2779 2681 3.171 4665.090 5 Keso 10387 1160 1145 3.976 2612.425 6 Chalalaki 13735 4271 4141 5.704 2407.959

Total 75,219 19789 19150 53.62 1402.84 Source: CSA, 2008

3.1.6.2 Age Composition  

The age composition of Nekemte town is almost similar to national age composition. It is

broader at the base indicating large number of population is below age 25 and narrows at the

tip indicating small number of older population proportion. In fact large portion of population

for both sexes lie between 15-24 ages (see Figure 3.5). Computed age dependency ratio

resulted 41.62%, which implies there is almost one dependent on every two working age

population.

18    

Fig. 3.5 Population pyramid of Nekemte town 3.1.7 Transportation

 The urban transport modalities in the town include motorized road, animal powered

transport and walking. Known animal powered transport in the town is cart while walking

and bicycle is the important mode of human powered transport observed in the town. For

mobility there is limited availability of road infrastructure in the town. This made

service limited to small number of routes and caused traffic congestion particularly

from roundabout Nekemte (i.e second square) to Wollega University route. (see Figure

3.6). Customers are waiting large time to access public transportation primarily associated

to lacking of alternative route that can help connect many places and secondly insufficient

number of availability of public transportation infrastructure. The congestion becomes

untellable in many taxi and bus stops.

10,000  8,000  6,000  4,000  2,000   0   2,000  4,000  6,000  8,000  10,000  

0  -­‐  4  

10_14  

20-­‐24  

30-­‐34  

40-­‐44  

50-­‐54  

60-­‐64  

70-­‐74  

80-­‐84  

90  -­‐94  

Number  of  PopulaFon    

Age  Group  

Male     Female  

19    

           Fig. 3.6 Partial view of traffic congestion in Nekemte town  

Absence of pedestrian roads and indiscriminate and mixing the use of the roads for

motorized and non-motorized means of transport also made mobility difficult in the

town.

Table 3.3 Availability of transportation in the town No. Means of transportation Ownerships Number

1 Taxy Private 27 2 Mini bus Private 35 3 City bus Government 2 4 Bajaj Private 276 5 Cart (horse) Private 396 6 Motor cycle Private 63 7 Bicycle Private 776

Source: Compiled based on data from East Wallaga Zone Finance and Economic Development Office 3.1.8 Water utility

 Nekemte water supply is significantly underdeveloped in terms of both quality and

quantity. The most significant sources of water for the town are tap water, springs, rivers,

well and pond. The coverage of water consumption in Nekemte town is poor and falls short

of the national and regional level. Generally, it is reported that 68.3% of the town’s

households have access to water sources regarded as safe in 2008. The national level

coverage of safe water for urban centers is 92.4% and that of Oromiya urban center is

91.03%. This shows that Nekemte’s safe water coverage (68.3%) is less than the national

and regional level (OFED, 2010).  

 

20    

 

3.1.10 Electric power

Since 1992, Nekemte has got hydroelectric supply system with the generating capacity of

40MW. As data obtained from Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation Nekemte branch office

indicates, there are 14,190 client of electric meter connection with 49km length in the town.

There are 92 transformers with various capacities ranging from 25 kilo volt ampere (KVA) to

1250KVA. The town has no electric installation plan at all. The system of installation has been

developed in the town by experience and sometimes done by agreement with customer.

3.1.11 Telephone Nekemte is served by digital telephone system that has a capacity of 10,240 lines and

7,132 bands. In general, the system has 6000 internet capacity with 195 bands. At present

only 736 terminal points which has a capacity of serving 7360 lines has been established

for the town. This connection made to household, different services and offices. The fixed

line telephones services include basic telecom facilities voice and data connectivity.

Mobile telephone is access all over the areal coverage of the town.

3.1.10 Education

   Provision of educational service in Nekemte town has been carried out i n many levels of

schools or education centers. Accordingly the town has 16 kindergarten, 37 primary school, 9

secondary school, 4 preparatory school, 7 TVET, 8 college and 1 University, the number

include NGOs.

Table 3. Schools or Education centers in Nekemte No Type of schools Government NGO Total

1 Kindergarten - 16 16 2 Primary school (1-8) 10 27 37 3 Senior secondary (9-10) 4 5 9 4 Preparatory(11-12) 1 4 5 5 Technical and Vocational Education

Training (TVET) 3 4 7

6 Colleges 1 7 8 7 Universities 1 1

Source: Finance and Economic Development Office of East Wallaga Zone, 2012

21    

3.1.11 Health services  

Nekemte town has many health institutions which are currently providing health

services that ranges from higher level of health institution (hospital and health centers)

to the lower level institutions such as pharmacies and rural drug vendors. Numerically,

there is 1 Hospital, 3 health centers, 51 clinics, 8 pharmacies, 3 drug whole sales, 28 drug

shops and 4 rural drug vendor providing health services to the population of Nekemte

town and nearby areas.

3.2 Research Methodology

This part includes data sources, software used through the development of the project and

methods used in analyses of images.

3.2.1 Data source Data used for this project was obtained from CSA, Nekemte municipality, Ethio-telecom,

Oromia Water, Mineral and Energy Bureau, and online searching (i.e. http://landsat.usgs.gov).

Supplementary (non-spatial) data was obtained from East Wallaga zone Finance and Economic

Development Office, and Nekemte town Water, Mineral and Energy office and through

unstructured interview. Field survey by using GPS was also used to identify location of

different facilities. Digital camera was used to capture photographs. Moreover Table 3.4 clarify

sources of data coupled with their format and time of data preparation.

22    

Table 3.4 shows the type of data used in the project. S.no.

Name of layers Type of features

Sources Time

1 Street network CAD Nekemte Municipality 2008 2 Water pipelines CAD Oromia Water, Mineral and

Energy Bureau 2000

3 DEM 2m resolution Raster Generated from Master plan GPS points

2008

4 Fixed Telephone line network

vector Ethio-telecom Head Office 2011

5 Demography CSA 2007 and 2013 projection

6 Nekemte administrative unit boundary

CAD Nekemte Municipality 2008

7 GPS data 2013 8 Number of Water meter

connection Nekemte town Water,

Mineral and Energy office 2012

3.2.2 Software used in the Analysis  

ArcGIS 10.1 advanced (ArcInfo) concurrent use with Network Analyst extension was used for

georeferencing CAD features, network analysis, proximity analysis and producing maps and

graphics. It is also used for statistical manipulation and report generation. Global Mapper 14.1

was used to show the terrain pattern of the study area in 3D because it has inbuilt functionality

for advanced capabilities in terrain layer comparison, and triangulation and gridding of 3D

point data. Erdas Imagine 2010 was used to produce land use land cover map of the study

area.

Data preparation After collecting all the necessary data the next step was tracked to preparation of the data for

analysis. This required changing of data formats, georeferencing, building the road network

database, digitizing fixed line telephone terminal points, connecting demographic and social-

economic data to each administrative unit to manipulate statistics, editing and joining attribute

data and adding missing attributes.

23    

3.2.3 Georeferencing and changing format  

This section outlines the procedures used in georeferencing AutoCAD feature datasets,

including Nekemte town street network, boundary, existing land use and water supply pipe line

network, and scanned images of fixed line telephone network. Georeferencing is the process of

assigning a coordinate system and applying a transformation to raster and CAD datasets. The

process used to rectify the CAD feature is not an easy task and it requires careful action.

Accordingly, Nekemte town street network feature in AutoCAD format was added to

ArcCatalog 10.1 environment to set spatial reference properties for CAD feature dataset in

preferred coordinate system (i.e. WGS 1984 UTM zone   37). This coordinate system was

chosen since the tangential point used for the geometric transformation is closer to the study

area that help to reduce the distortion created by projection to XY coordinate system. Spatial

reference property was established to the specified projection type and the AutoCAD features

were directly imported to ArcMap 10.1 to commit georeferencing process. Fit to display

command was used to a little bit closer zoom in just to identify features clearly;

instantaneously Georeferencing toolbars was activated to add control points. After adding

control points georeferncing had updated and the system generated universal world file format

(with extensions .wld) that applies identical transformation of all CAD files in a work space.

This universal world file generated in the course of georeferencing processes tells ArcMap

where in the world this image is now located and more importantly it fixes the transformation

permanently. Hence whenever the dataset is loaded in a work space, the system checks itself

and no need of georeferencing so many times. Accordingly, generated world file with .wld

extension was saved in work space to keep the rectification permanent.

The same processes were applied to rectify Nekemte town water supply connection network,

Nekemte boundary and existing land use types in CAD features datasets. This made the spatial

data viewed, queried, overlaid and analyzed and joined with other spatial data in a GIS

environment.

 

Fig. 3.7 The road-map of georeferencing process

Add AutoCAD feature to

ArcCatalog 10.1

Assigning

cordinate

system

Add the feature

to ArcMAp

Fit the feature

to display

Add Control Points

Commit Georefe

ncing

Update Georeferencing

24    

Fixed line telephone network covering the study area were found in analogue form, printed on

fourteen A1 size maps. To take these spatial data in GIS environment and carry analyses, the

analogue maps converted to digital format. Therefore the possible means to convert the

analogues to digital data were using scanning machines. As a result, 14 maps were scanned and

produced digital image in .tiff format. Finally, image to image georeferencing system was

applied in ArcGIS 10.1 environment in order to establishing its location in terms of projection.

 

Fig. 3.8 Conceptual framework

 Data  sources    

Waterline  Network  in  CAD  

Georeferencing    

ConnecFng  to  aMribute  table  

Indexing  

Nekemte  Master  plan  and  Street  Network  in  CAD  

Georeferencing  

Road  ExtracFon  

 TransportaFon  network  creaFon    

AMribute  creaFng  and  connecFng  to  transportaFon  route  network  

Database  establishment  

Compute  

     Mapping  

Telephone  distribuFon  network      in  Analogue  

Scan  

Georeferencing    

DigiFzing  

Different  telephone  line  and  point  layer  extracFon  

Develop  and  connect  aMribute  to  the  layers    

25    

After all georefrencing process was completed and the AutoCAD features and raster images

were rectified based on WGS 1984 UTM zone 37. Fixed line telephone terminal points and

distribution of cables were digitized from scanned sheets. This circumstances made datasets

were ready for extraction to required format; they were converted to shape files. To make

collected documents computable to GIS environment and for further statistical manipulation

they were imported to Excel and then converted to database (dbf format) by using SPSS 20 and

Excel 2013 CSV format. Subsequently, all attribute data obtained from different sources were

attached to the boundaries of Nekemte sub city and street network to map accessibility to road

network, water supply condition and fixed telephone terminal points.

Process of building Geodatabase

When working with datasets storing geospatial data in geodatabases particularly file

geodatabase optimizes the use in ArcGIS environment. Hence file geodatabase which offer

structural, performance, and data management advantages over simple shapefiles was created

to store data. Street networks, fixed telephone line distribution networks and water supply

pipeline network were extracted and exported to shape file and stored geodatabase to sustain

for future use, enable to assess their accessibility and to create network and proximity analysis.

Finally, all datasets created before the processing and generated during processing were stored

in file geodatabase.

3.2.4 Network Analysis  

The project utilized ArcGIS Network Analyst to model realistic street network conditions,

including street routing, closest facility analysis and service area analysis.   Attribute data

containing length and time limit field was geometrically calculated while speed of traversing

was assigned in line with road type to make ready for network analysis. Since the system

required ArcGIS Network Analyst extension, it was activated and therefore provided complete

set of tools to create, maintain, and perform analysis on network datasets.

Accordingly, ArcCatalog 10.1 was used to create and build a network dataset from feature

classes stored within a geodatabase. The connectivity rules and network attributes for the

26    

network dataset was defined. Edge connectivity of the roads was set to Network Analyst to any

vertex which tells the system to consider smallest possible impedances.

Finding the best route was produced through creating the route analysis layer in ArcGIS

environment. Closest Facility analysis was done by adding different facilities and incidents.

Creating the service area analysis layer was also done through adding the location of facilities

(i.e. like health services, education centers and known recreational areas) into active network

analysis class to generate a series of polygons representing the distance that can be reached

from a facility within a specified amount of time. Given the transportation network these

analyses helped to identify areas of easily accessible and inaccessible. Next the parameters

such as accumulation attributes, analysis setting impedances, changing default breaks to

different time and distance, and the direction from which traveling is done for the analysis

were set. Finally service area analysis were computed to produce different concentric zones

polygon and mapped with careful utilization of cartographic principles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

27    

CHAPTER FOUR

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Road Network Analysis The urban road network plays a key role in the overall urban spatial structure. It is the main

social economic activities and transportation carrier. Network analysis enables to solve problems,

such as finding the most efficient travel route, generating travel directions, finding the closest

facility, defining service areas based on travel time. Hence building geodatabase where these

spatial data are stored and sustained is highly important urban development plan.

4.1.1 Setting up Street Geodatabase One of the most important parts of assessing road network is credited to create geographic

database, technically termed as geodatabase. For any form of evaluation or assessment in GIS

environment, building geodatabase is a primary method used to organize and use geographic

information in ArcGIS products. Therefore, it is essential to create Nekemte road network

geodatabase to apply any inbuilt Network Analyst algorithm in ArcGIS 10.1. The Network

Analyst toolbox contains tools that perform network analysis and network dataset maintenance

as well. With the toolbox, one can maintain network datasets that model transportation networks

and perform route, closest facility, service area, and other network analyses on transportation

networks.

28    

Extraction of street feature from Nekemte Master Plan

 

Dissolve  the  entire  road  feature  to  a  single  object  to  reduce  unnecessary  segments  breakdown  

Convert feature to line to break the features  at  their  intersections  or  any  junction  

 

Create Fields and calculate length of each segment

 

Create different fields like Time, Speed limit, elevation, direction and others used to compute best route, closest facility and service area  

Modeling    

Process of building Geodatabase

                                                       

Create Geodatabase Import feature classes

to Geodatabase

               4.1.2 Best Route Analysis

 Network Analyst keeps a running total of the length of the segments as it compares various

alternative routes between locations when finding the shortest route. Finding the best route is

important to minimize travel cost through a series of stops. When finding the best route from

built geodatabase one has fully privileged to set different conditions the algorithms must

consider. The systems of computation also allow deriving directions that generate a series of

direction based on the best route created by route or closest facility solver. The direction

indicator has expandable map, unit reporting, cost attribute and preview options. Cost

attribute can be time, distance or cumulate of the two.

The demonstration of what is discussed is serially illustrated on the produced maps. Based on

network modeling depicted in Figure 4.1, the best route from Wollega University area buss top

Result (map)

Compute    

29    

to Nekemte Bus station indicated in Figure 4.2. Even though the best route is highlighted by

the system critical analysis may show a series of shortage of road network around university

area to New Generation University College. It is only one street that connects these two areas.

That is why the system identified the route as the shortest path. Here the problem of

accessibility of road facility is detected from spatial point of view.

Fig. 4.1 Network Modeling  

 

30    

Fig.  4.3  shortest  route  from  Sorga  to  Hospital.  

 

Fig 4.2 Shortest route analysis by considering different origins and destinations.  

 

4.1.3 Closest Facility Analysis  The closest facility solver finds the cost of travelling between incidents (i.e. specified points/

locations) and facilities and determines which are nearest to the other. The output includes a

ranking of facilities by least impedance to or from incidents, along tracking directions between

them.   The closest facility solver displays the best routes between incidents and facilities,

reports their travel costs, and returns driving directions. Here is an example of closest three

known hotels that considered as facilities accessed within 7 minute from Wollega University,

Kumsa Moreda, Chalalaki and Sorga area along the shortest path. Accordingly, the selection of

closest known hotel and best route is highlighted (see Figure 4.3)

31    

 

     

Fig. 4.3 Closest major hotel facilities mapping to selected areas.  

When finding the closest facility it is also possible to specify constraints, like a cutoff cost and

put restriction beyond which Network Analyst will not search for facilities. For instance, the

writer set up a closest facility problem to search for 5 schools within a 10 minute drive from

First Square (roundabout Nekemte) and Chalalaki. Any schools that take longer than 10

minutes to reach are not included in the results. This can be visualized in the Figure 4.4.

32    

Fig. 4.4 Education closest facility mapping  

4.1.4 Service Area Analysis    

The service area solver generates polygons or lines that cover all edges within a given distance,

travel time or other impedance unit from the predefined facility/facilities. A network service

area is a region that encompasses all accessible streets (i.e. streets which are found within

specified impedance). As it is shown in Figure 4.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 15 and 20 minute service

area for Nekemte hospital on a network includes all the streets that can be reached within

specified minutes from Nekemte hospital.

Service areas created by Network Analyst also help to evaluate accessibility. Concentric

service zones show how accessibility varies with impedance. Once service areas are created,

we can use them to identify how much land is within the neighborhood or region. Based on

service area analysis made from the hospital facility 1 would represent a polygon that covers

all traversable edges within one minute by considering available facility from the hospital,

which is 0.0048 sq. km. The service areas polygon feature class represented by 20 on the

other hand specifies the regions of the network that can be reached within the given 20 minute

covering about 17.78 sq. km. This service area is considered to be the geographic area

surrounding the hospital from which it pulls the majority of its customers/patients. It is

delimitated by well-defined geographic borders. This implies that serviceability of the hospital

33    

has been affected by road arrangement within the town. As it observed in the map the southern

and eastern the hospital even if they are geographically closer to the hospital, customer cannot

reach the hospital up to 20 minute due to unavailability of routes. The people who are in east,

south and northwest are forced to round large distance to visit Nekemte hospital that cost time

and money. This shows the shortage of transportation network development in the town.

(a)

b

Fig.4.5 Service area analysis of Nekemte hospital shown by (a) concentric zones and (b) area coverage

34    

When eight major health services location were loaded into active network analysis class and

given equal weight, the condition was immediately updated to other polygon regions (i.e.

service areas) as shown in the Figure 4.6.

Fig. 4.6 Major health service area analysis with different cutoff cost.

35    

The map clearly shows that least accessible areas of the town are outskirt areas while town

center and part of the town all along functional roads accessible with different distance cost.

The service area analysis validated that for 1.75 km distance impedance a large part of the

town had bad accessibility.  The accessibility not only affected by distance but also by lack of

transportation route in many areas of the study area. The above analysis made in GIS

environment verified road network problem away from the center of the study area. On other

hand functionality of built database and powerfulness of GIS in making decision was

illuminated.

Above all it is better to test database applicability in different scenarios. Accordingly, Nekemte

town recreational service area with a series of time cutoff was also computed to show

applicability of created database in different domain of service provider and it is proved to be

functional in a different circumstances (see Figure 4.7). This proved that created geodatasase in

GIS environment is becoming essential in understanding what is happening and gives an

opportunity to prescribe action. GIS-based analysis and visualizations therefore greatly assist in

understanding different situations in a way that can be used as a type of language that improves

communication between different organizations and the public. Areas covered within 2 to 25

minute derive along the shortest path is clearly visualized from the map which implies most parts

of the town is not traversable major recreational centers of the town. This happened because of

lack of possible shortest route and arrangement of the recreational centers themselves in the town

also.

36    

Fig. 4.7 Recreation service area analysis with different time cutoff cost.

4.1.5 Proximity to Road Network Analysis One of the parameters that show the availability of transport facility is its proximity to the end

users, which measures how many individuals access the services within a given distance or

time. In spite of its importance, proximity is difficult and too cumbersome to calculate

manually. However, GIS is powerful to calculate proximity and at the same time map within

short period of time.

Just to assess proximity of the existing road network in the town considering to population

distribution, multi-ring buffer algorithm is fitted to the available route. This help to measure

the proximity of population from the available transportation route. Accordingly 47% of the

population have access to road on their gate, while 27.8% and 25.2% population moves up to

50m and more than 500m respectively to access road facility. The situation became worse for

37    

Bake Jama administrative unit where 51% of the household need to walk 500m to 2km to

access road facility. In case of Keso administrative unit 35% of the population required to

walk up 500m to 1km to access road transport. Under natural circumstance any household in

urban centers have at least access to paved road. What is serious here is that many households

have no paved road at all. The pattern can be depicted from Figure 4.8

Fig. 4.8 Road Transport proximity analysis of the study area

4.1.6 Evaluation of Road Network in Nekemte Town    

The street patterns of Nekemte town are radial in nature. As it is shown in Figure 4.9 the

arterial streets radiate from the central part of the town to Bure, Gimbi, Sasiga and Addis

Ababa directions. Bulks of the administrative, commercial, business and cultural functions

occur along this axis.

38    

Fig. 4.9. Nekemte’s street pattern

The other existing street system other than the radial could be grouped as organic. The

connection is almost inconsistent and restricted to serve only local areas. Many streets end

without connecting to other nodes. Besides, streets are rarely large enough or direct enough to

serve the existing population. Irregularities in networking system are observed in the town. The

streets are damaged and not comfortable in many parts of the study area. The organization of

these streets a lso lacks hierarchical arrangement and proper fitting. Furthermore there are

considerable portion of the study area that are not covered by street system.  Many of the

neighborhoods in the town are inaccessible for vehicular roads; where access roads exist, they

are poor in quality, not maintained and difficult to use during rainy season. The street pattern is

usually chaotic.

For the sake of accessing transportation route, most commercial activities are concentrated on

specific area. Hotels, bars and restaurants, boutiques, retail and wholesale shops, government

offices, financial institutions like banks and insurances even gullets and informal sector

operators, micro and small scale development and many other formal and informal business

and workshops activities exist at the center of the town by following along developed

transportation route. Consequently, the concentration of all urban functions in the center

attracts many people and traffic from all corners of the town. As a result streets in the area are

39    

thick throughout the day. This is mainly dictated by meager accessibility to transportation

network as any movement from the Centre. This is illuminated in the Figure 4.10 and Figure

4.11

 

Fig. 4.10 Land use type populated following transportation route  

40    

 

Fig. 4.11 High concentration of services and facilities following the main route  

 

Nekemte remained with shortage of basic urban transport networks. Almost all parts of

existing urban transport facilities in Nekemte are broken-down due to long age and

absence of proper maintenance. This can verified from photograph indicated in Figure 4.12

which was collected during field observation.

Fig.4.12 Partial view of Nekemte street problem captured during field observation

In addition as one move from the two squares (roundabout Nekemte), which is considered as

the center of the own, accessibility to transport become worse (see Figure 4.13). What are

inscrutabilities here is that the rapid population growth that accelerated spatial expansion to

no paved road and other mode of transport facility at all. The rapid paces of population

41    

expansion combined with existing infrastructure bottlenecks made the tasks of

transportation and other infrastructure provision difficult to Nekemte town.

Fig.4.13 Nekemte Road network system

The problems of street network in the town are numerous. Street width is quite below the

standard. The standards of arterial and collector streets in urban Ethiopia have relatively

moderate width 15m. But in case of Nekemte arterial streets have only 10m width while

collectors constructed haphazardly.

The other challenge clearly observed on the construction of street is mainly on pedestrian

mobility. Nekemte could be considered as one of the urban centers in Ethiopia that depends

largely on walking as means of urban mobility. However, the existing streets are not

constructed in a way that it suits for walking purpose. Most streets do not have acknowledged

lanes for pedestrians. Even in areas where the pedestrian lane is provided, mobility is

congested by dumped construction materials like gravel, sand or stone, poles, street side shops

and parking functions. From various parameters like safety, security, convenience and

attractiveness, the existing pedestrian lane not fulfill the beauty of the town.

The above problems are largely man made and possibly curbed by re-engineering the system.

Unquestionably, this can cost many things to develop en route for standard. Moreover,

Nekemte is threatened by natural settings of surface morphology. It has rugged topography

42    

and characterized by steep slope which is difficult for road construction. This can be visualized

from Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN) in Figure 4.14 which was generated from digital

elevation model (DEM) of Nekemte town. TIN have been used by the GIS expertise and

geographers to represent surface morphology since it gives clear visualization of relief

features. TINs are a form of vector-based digital geographic data and are constructed by

triangulating a set of vertices (elevation points). The vertices are connected with a series of

edges to form a network of triangles to enable easy identification of terrain pattern. As it can be

depicted from triangulation of irregular network the surface morphology of the study area

remained with full of ups and down, and fragmentations which is immediately occurring. The

slope of the study area as resulted in chapter 3 is high and largely uneven.

43    

(a)

(b)

Fig. 4.14 Triangulated Irregular Network (a) and slope (b) of Netemte town  

44    

4.2 Nekemte Water Supply Network Coverage  

The distribution of water supply pipelines network in Nekemte town covers 10.9 square km.

Conversely, the town extends over 53.62 square km. Then again land use that require water

utility (i.e. land use type under residence or different service areas) covers 12.5 sq km. This

variation indicate 1.6 sq. km. These are the areas of land uses that require water utility but not

currently covered by the water supply pipeline network system. However, apart from this water

supply network connection, large institutions like Wollega University use drilled holes as

source of water supply. The inconsistences of water supply network coverage and areas require

water utility is illustrated in the following map.

Fig. 4.15 Discrepancies of water supply coverage and areas require water utility.    

4.2.1 Source of Water Supply  

Currently the town gets tab water form Adiya River which is 7 km far from the center and

three bore holes found at 10km from the center of the town. As to data obtained from the

population and housing census 2007 higher percentage, 37.3%, of the town households

obtained drinking water from tab outside their compound. On the other side 3.72% of the

45    

households of the town obtained drinking water from unprotected well and spring while 2.9 %

of households of the study area were fetched drinking water from unprotected rivers/ponds. It

is clear that rivers flow nearby town is affected by different wastes come out from the town.

Incontestably consuming water from this source for domestic purpose adversely affects their

health and psychology. They are worrying about their health whenever they consumed from

unprotected sources of water. Detailed percentage sharing of drinking water consumed by the

society is indicated on Figure 4.14.

Fig.4.16 sources of drinking water for Nekemte town  

4.2.2 Nekemte Water Supply

Water is a pre-requisite for socio-economic development, healthy and satisfaction of any

society and seeks attention. Possibly, water is the most important and the corner stone of

life on earth. Despite the importance the prevailing water supply situation in Nekemte is

worrying because Nekemte water supply is significantly underdeveloped in terms of both

quantity and quality as well. The town is not fortunate to enjoy well connected water

supply systems that provide clean and reliable water source to the population. Water

supplied for the population carries different suspended impurities like dirt, sand, dust and

soils. This impurities sometimes make the color of the water cloudy. During data collection

different images that can be considered as a witness was captured and appended to this

document as follows (see Figure 4.17).

2.9%  

3.72%  

8.1%  

17.84%  

30.14%  

37.3%  

0   5   10   15   20   25   30   35   40  

 From  river,lake  or  pond  

From  unprotected  well  or  spring  

From  protected  well  

From  other  sources  

From  tap  inside  compound  

From  tap  outside  compound  

Percentage of Households Obtain Drinking Water

46    

 

Fig. 4.17 Suspended impurities observed in Nekemte drinking water  

As has been noted in chapter 3 a n d visualized from the above photograph water supply for

the town is not fair in terms of quality and quantity. When quantity is considered it was

reported that only 68.3% of the town’s households have access to water sources regarded as

safe in 2008 (OFED, 2010). The condition is serious and fascinating one’s attention. According

to International Water Resources Association standard set for human needs is 50 liters per

person per day (IWRA, 1996). However the average consumption of water in Nekemte is 16.3

liters per day per person which is lower than three times the set standard. In addition, water

supply for the town is not continuous and reliable. As information obtained from the end

users interruption of water supply is a common phenomenon in the town. This failure to meet

population water demand causes large scale human dissatisfaction, misery and suffering.

 

4.2.3 Water Production, Distribution and Consumption in Nekemte  

As it indicated in Table 4.1 the annual water production capacity for the town has shown

significant increment from 2007 to 2012. Simultaneously, annual water consumption has also

increased to 576,916 m3 in 2012. Leakage of water also showed rapid increment and reach

44% in 2012. The loss of water is attributed to the aging of pipe lines (because most of the

pipe lines served for 38 years), different construction that break pipe lines and lack of

maintenance.

 

 

 

 

47    

Table 4.1 Production and Consumption of water in Nekemte Town. S.N

Item Unit 2006/07 2007/08 2010/11 2011/12

1 Annual water production 000 m3 579 630 681 1596 2 Annual water consumption 000 m3 352 383 394 576.9

3 Leakage % 39 39 42 44 4 Water production capacity Million

in m3 1120 198 11197 11197

5 Per capita water supply L/person 19-21 45

6 Per capita water consumption

L/person 13-14 16

Source:  Compiled  based  on  data  from  Nekemte  town  Water,  Mineral  and  Energy  Office  

4.2.4.1 Water Meter Connection to Households

According to data obtained from Water, Mineral and Energy Office of Nekemte town, there

are 7201 private meter connections, in 2012, to household that significantly vary from Keso

sub city (348 connections) to Chalalaki sub city which amounts to 2691 meter water

connections. The detailed spatial variation is indicated in the following map and associated

graph (see Figure 4.18).

 

Fig. 4.18 Private water meter connections in each sub city  

Sources of water in Nekemte are unreliable and not continuous in both temporal and spatial

dimension. Following fluctuation of water volume or quantity significant numbers of

households are changing source of water from one source to other. As it is resulted in Figure

4.19 higher instability recorded in Darge sub city and generally more than 65% of the

population of the study area was unable to get private meter connection. In this case

48    

households prefer alternative water supply sources such as public tabs, looking for individual

vendors, tabs of neighbor’s house, natural springs and others.

Fig. 4.19 Number of households obtain water from a various sources by each sub city

Comparative analysis of network density that can be obtained through number of private meter

connection in each sub city by normalizing to number of households in each sub city indicated

that there is higher network density in Chalalaki sub city, which accounts for 63 meter

connection per 100 households. This implies that for 10 household numbers there is almost 6

water meter connections. The smallest network density is observed in Bake Jama

administrative unit which has 17 meter connection per 100 households (see Figure 4.20). The

overall analysis of water meter connection compared to existing household number in the town

indicated 38% number of meter connection.

 

 

 

 

49    

Fig. 4.20 Number of water meter connections per number of households per sub city

On the other hand significant number of households used shared meter connection to get domestic water. About 1519 households in Bake Jama sub city used shared meter connection whereas shared water meter connection was as low as 23 in Keso sub city and detail representation is shown in Figure 4.21.

Fig. 4.21 Number shared water connection to household by each sub city

 

50    

4.3 Nekemte fixed Line Telephone Distribution

Typically, the first step for most urban planning in areas of telecommunications is hunting for

potential areas of customers that can resulted from analysis of different variables like land use

assessment. Because it is logical to invest in areas where built-up areas are standing. Therefore

the assessments seek to define the extent of existing fixed line telecommunications coverage, and

the location of potential customers in the vicinity. The assessment reveals a deficiency in supply

relative to the estimated demand for fixed line telecommunications services in the study area.

Henceforth GIS can be used to design scenarios for bridging the gap. In some circumstances

fixed line telephone is preferable way of communication for the following reasons. Fixed line

telephone is advantageous over mobile telephone at first place it is less cost for making

international calls. Secondly, in terms cost and management it is difficult to buy a mobile cell

phone for all members of family and therefore a single fixed line cell phone is needed to

communicate families found in house and offices. Thirdly, payment is made monthly and billed

by accepted receipt to require release of budget if any sponsoring body is available. Fourthly

since it is fixed to a certain place, it is not easily dropped and therefore durable. These all

circumstances increased the demand of fixed line telephone in the town. This does not mean that

fixed line telephone is all in all preferable than mobile telephone system rather mobile cell

phones are more convenient to carry them with us and using cell phones means that no new

telephone cables and wires need to be laid.

Based on series of annual report from 2007/8 to 2009/10 fiscal year made by ethio-telecom

Nekemte district office, the demand for fixed telephone in the town has shown increasing trend

(see Table 4.2). Although it has been continuously expanding since the 2007, fixed-line

telephone network is still absorbs high demand. Teledensity has not reached and marked

disparity between Centre of the town and its outlying areas. In fact there is no recorded data

available since 2010 onwards up to current condition.

Table 4.2 Demand and services of fixed telephone line in Nekemte Town S.No 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10 Total

1 Demand 1236 2991 3021 7248 2 Number of served 1009 2776 2804 6589 Source: Mined from 3 years annual report of ethio-telecom Nekemte district office

 

 

51    

Nekemte town fiber optic cable installation has covered 77.25 km. Thirty-four Multi-Service

Access Gateway (MSAG) boxes from where client channels get service have also been installed

in the town (see Figure 4.22).

Fig. 4.22 Distribution of Multi-service access gateway and optical fiber cable installations

Currently there are 736 terminal points that can serve for 7360 lines covering nearly 13.3 sq km;

their distribution over the study area is illustrated in Figure 4.23. These numbers are crude and

difficult to check accessibility to the population against any administrative boundaries of the

town and for which type of the services connections were made. The fixed line telephone

services include connection made to households, government and non-government offices and

other services. However, it is possible to determine the proximity of access points to land use

types. This responds appropriately to any request geographical proximity in respect to different

land use types in a GIS environment. The distribution of terminal points from which connection

is made to each houses has shown in Figures 4.23. Similar to other services such as the

distribution of meter water connection and street network arrangement, the distributions of fixed

line telephone services are also concentrated at the center.

 

 

52    

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                                                                           

Fig.4.23 fixed telephone network distribution in 3D environment

 

There are 11 Cross connection cabinet (CCC) in the town which is used for cross-connecting

incoming and outgoing optical cables, and carry signals. The distribution patterns of CCC have

shown in Figure 4.24. The number of fixed line telephone connection made in the town is

determined by the capacity of CCC. Accordingly Nekemte CCC has a potential to serve 10240

lines and have to be connected to 1024 terminal points in order to utilize its full capacity. The

CCC has functions of cable termination, as well as fiber distribution, splice, storage and dispatch.

Fig. 4.24 Distribution of terminal points (a) and CCC (b)  

 

 

 

53    

GIS offers the fixed line telephone network planner a powerful solution for simultaneously

managing the physical location of the infrastructure and non-spatial data components in a single

environment. This process became realistic when spatial distribution of the fixed line terminal

points modeled with the distribution of land uses in the study area (see Figure 4.25).

Fig 4.25 Modeling line fixed telephone coverage for identifying areas require attention

The modeling produced map symbolized in Figure 4.26 which showed the accessible and

inaccessible areas crossways to land use types. Besides distribution of fixed line telephone

network coverage with land use indicates that many areas remained as uncovered by terminal

points from which connection is transferred to houses. Thereupon different pocket areas which

covers about 3.7 sq km were identified as where buildings are available but no connection and

distribution of cables that providing connection function. These areas were identified as

inaccessible to fixed line telephone that demand fixed telephone connection and these areas is

labeled as areas requiring attention for future expansion in the Figure 4.26 and . Inaccessible

areas also verified from the map.

 

 

54    

 

Fig 4.26 Fixed line telephone network coverage for identifying areas require attention

 

55    

CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Summary This project was conducted in Nekemte town, found in Oromia region, 331 km west of Addis

Ababa city. The purpose of the study was to create spatial geodatabase used for Nekemte road

Network, water supply and fixed-line telephone connections, and assessing their accessibility to

population distribution. Hence, the distribution of road network, water supply network and fixed

line telephone was used as a data source, georeferenced and imported into GIS environment to

determine their accessibility. Overlay analysis, extract and proximity analysis toolbox in ArcGIS

10.1 were used for spatial analysis particularly in performing overlays, clip, intersect, create

buffers, calculate statistics and symmetrical difference along with modeling. Throughout the

digital image processing non-spatial data (i.e. attribute data) were also used to indicate existing

realities of the study area. Network analysis like best route identification, closest facility

mapping and service area analyses were done in ArcGIS 10.1 environment. Proximity analysis

through buffering was used to determine which part of the town is easily accessible and

inaccessible to street network. Other GIS software Global Mapper 14.1 and Erdas Imagine 2010

were used to map terrain patterns and land use and land cover classes of the study area

respectively.

Shortage of street network, water supply pipe line connection and accessibility to fixed line

telephone was observed in outskirt parts of the town. Inaccessibility to the transport facility and

water supply become worse in Bake Jama and Burqa Jato administrative units. Attribute to

insufficient development of street network, there is no many possible ways to visit different

service areas particularly Nekemte Hospital and Wollega University. Water private meter

connection made to the households is varying from one sub city to another sub city and the least

availability is observed in Keso sub city which was 348 while the largest was made 2691 in

Chalalaki sub city. Fixed line telephone network covered 13.3 sq. km while about 3.7 square km

areas were identified as where built up areas are available but coverage of fixed-line telephone is

not yet reached.

 

56    

5.2 Conclusions

The main objective of the project is to build road network, water supply pipeline and fixed line

telephone geospatial database in GIS environment and to assess their spatial arrangement in the

study area. GIS is demonstrated as a powerful tool throughout geodatabase building, managing

large and spatial data analysis. The tools embedded in ArcGIS particularly ArcGIS 10.1 has many

options through which a large spatial dimension is modeled. These help the study to assess the

accessibility of existing road network patterns. The result showed that there is inaccessibility of

transport facility here and there apart from the center (roundabout Nekemte); it is radically reduced

and became extreme in the west (Sorga area) and eastern part around Wollega University. Besides

the possibility to access or reach important facilities like Nekemte hospital and Wollega

University, where a large population is attracted, is made only through single route. This

inaccessibility to different facilities and services including transportation route caused major

conflict during taking taxi and creates congestion in traffic movement.

Availability of adequate quantity and quality of water supply is a key requisite in maintaining a

healthy environment. However, Nekemte is not fortune to satisfy water demand for the needy

population. The requirement of water for domestic purposes including for sanitation and gardening

was obtained from taps, spring, well, river, pond or combined sources. Consumption of water for

different domestic activities was 16.3 liters/person/day. There is mismatch between water supply

and demand in both spatial coverage and quantity. In any angles of water supply analyses made in

the study area flashes red light and clearly indicate critical drinking water supply shortage. The

distribution of fixed line telephone in the town similar to other facilities and utilities concentrated

in the central part of the town. The outlying areas have poorer to the service.

Finally, it was concluded that GIS is a powerful tool to manage spatial data for the reason that it

has a great facility for geographic features and their attributes in a computer database. GIS is also

key to evaluate urban facilities and utilities planning through providing spatial relational

information. Urban facilities and utilities planning have naturally spatial dimension and this is the

most compelling evidence that GIS is exceling in assessing the arrangement of urban services.

The advantage of using a GIS for analysis of Nekemte urban facilities helped the identification of

the accessible and inaccessible areas through pointing areas require attention, visual cross checking

with statistical data, and provides a platform for presenting the analysis on map in a way that

government officials can review their plan.  

 

57    

5.3 Recommendations  

GIS is a powerful tool that gives an opportunity to update geospatial data at any time. GIS

can store, handle, analyze and retrieve bulky of geospatial data. Therefore, it is here

recommended that to automate Nekemte town facilities and utilities planning, the

Nekemte municipality and other stake holders can use GIS technology for better utility

management and planning.

This project is mainly based on available data. Further investigation can be made through

detail primary data collection. This opens an opportunity for more comprehensive and

robust research work.

Application of GIS in urban planning and simultaneously monitoring inadequate service

areas is indispensable. Therefore, service providers in the town can use GIS technology to

fulfil the needs of the society.

Unavailability of roads observed in different corners of the town. Nevertheless every plot

required to have access road towards its main entrance. It should be sufficiently accessible

for emergency services, fire brigade vehicles, ambulances and latrine sucking trucks. This

calls for reconsiderations of street network planning and additional road constructions in

the town. It is better to give priority for Bake Jama sub city the most inaccessible and then

Burqa Jato administrative unit.

Existing water supply services in the town is not satisfactory, fair and continuous in the

town. Therefore searching alleviation mechanisms (like searching additional sources,

increasing opportunity to have independent water meter connection and extra water

supply pipes expansion to new residential areas) is now compulsory.

Outlying residential areas of the town have no access to fixed line telecommunication

convenience. The expansions were stopped somewhere far from their vicinity. Therefore,

it is essential to expand fixed line telecommunication in the community.    

 

A    

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Proceedings of Global Geospatial Conference 2013 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 4-8 November 2013  

 

 

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Appendices

Appendix-A Nekemte Road Network Database

 

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Appendix-B Unstructured interview

Leading Questions

1. What are the major facility problems in Nekemte town?

2. IS the distribution of water supply is fair? In what context?

3. What is the advantages of fixed line telecommunication over mobile?

4. Would you name the major recessional centers in the Nekemte town?

 

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Appendix-C