Land use plan implementation and associated environment impact in Nunga site, Kicukiro District, City of Kigali

Abstract

Land use planning is the practice that is growing rapidly in Rwanda and highly dominated in urban areas. In Rwandan urban areas, urban planning seeks to order and regulate land use in an efficiency and ethical ways, thus preventing land use conflicts. The government uses land use planning to manage the development of land within their jurisdictions. Kigali as the capital city of Rwanda is having high urbanization rate of 4.1%. Through urbanization, the land use plan and its implementation are highlighted in order to organize the beauty of the city where it becomes easier to provide infrastructure and service to the citizens. This research aims to analyze existing physical plan, investigate the progress in the physical plan implementation, assess the environmental impact that results from implementation of land use plan in Nunga site, Nunga cell, Gahanga sector, Kicukiro District and suggest alternative solutions to the environmental impacts. All those were obtained from the field visit and results collected from the questionnaires and interview conducted. The spatial analysis through GIS tools and Google Earth images have been used to know the evolution of land use in the site in different periods of years. The implementation of land use plan in Nunga site is productive due to the infrastructures including roads which are created, market, schools, playground which will be provided, water and electricity which are in the process to site. The provision of those infrastructures, some environmental impacts have been observed including soil erosion, air pollution, and removal of some small forest which were presented in the site. Referring to the Environmental Impacts in Land Use Plan Implementation that is gradually regarded as a crucial basis of sustainable development, SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment) or Sustainable Assessment (SA) may be undertaken to integrate environment considerations and sustainability of proposed policies, program and plans. Key Words: Land use planning, land use plan implementation, Environmental Impact