Vertical Foresting: Innovative Solution for the Impacts of Fast City Growth on the Greenbelt of Adama City

Abstract

Urbanization is a growth-promoting process that is a worldwide phenomenon that encourages economic progress and poverty reduction. As a process of urbanization, urban expansion has the potential to result in the loss of agricultural land, natural beauty, range areas, parks, and scenic views. Adama, from its territory coverage and population number, is among the cities that growing rapidly both in Oromia National Regional State and the Ethiopian rift valley regime. Thus, the city is under serious environmental degradation. In this research Adama city?�?s growth was assessed to look at the impacts it had on the existing green belts surrounding the city namely land uses of agricultural lands, natural vegetative lands, and barren lands from the past 20 years. Then to provide an innovation mitigating solution for sustainability through the vertical foresting system by planning and designing an expansion city of vertical foresting. The research has valued the perception of the community in the city by using a stratified random sampling system. Here sample sizes were selected from each inventoried 18 kebele of the city randomly to make inferences for the entire population of the city. Informants were also addressed through in-depth interview. In this study, the researcher was primarily engaged in collecting field data which she had supported with secondary sources of information. For further evaluation of the impacts faced by those green belts Land Use/Land Cover change detection analysis was done to assess the spatial and temporal Land Use/Land Cover Changes in the city of Adama over the study period of the past 20 years (2000, 2007, 2014, and 2021) in four consecutive years each with an interval of 7 years apart. Remote sensing and GIS were used to provide land sat imageries of classified land classes (Urban-built area, Agricultural Land, Natural Vegetated areas, and Bare land) to map the changes that each land-use class has undergone. The results revealed that the city had exhibited significant change over the study periods by which the Land Use/Land Cover change detection showed the dramatic increase of urban built-up area from 999.45 Ha in the year 2000 to 4823.46 Ha in the year 2021 by which the surrou