GIS MODEL FOR THE LAND USE

AND DEVELOPEMENT MASTER PLAN

IN RWANDA
• Thesis for Degree of Master of Science in Geomatics
• Willem Tims, June 2009
Introduction

◉ Rwanda is a small land-locked country, with a

population of over nine million people.
◉ 14th poorest country in the world.
◉ To change this, the Rwanda Land Use and
Development Master Plan was developed.
◉ GIS technology is an important part of the Master
Plan development process.

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 Rwanda

◉ Land is of It is therefore ◉ Reducing % of people

enormous value important to: earning their livelihood
◉ and will only (1) develop a land- with agriculture from 80%
become more use master plan, to 50%.
valuable when (2) think of new ways ◉ Tourism to boost economy
population to ◉ To preserve conservation
increases. earn money. areas.
◉ the first part, the
GIS is of huge
importance.
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Objective

The main objective of this research is to develop a GIS model:

◉ Covers urban, agricultural and conservational land-use suitability,
◉ And integrates stakeholders’ wishes
◉ in a way that they can support the decision-making process.

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Materials and methods

The LUCIS Model (Land-Use Conflict

Identification Strategy)

◉ Developed in university of Florida.

◉ The GIS model produces a spatial
representation of probable patterns
of future land-use.
◉ There are three major land-use
categories: urban, agriculture and
conservation.
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The LUCIS Model Applied

1) Defining goals 2) Data inventory 3) Creation of land-use

and objectives ◉ a list was made suitability maps
◉ hierarchical set of with datasets that ◉ It was extensively
statements were needed. explained for the
◉ Unfortunately, Florida case study
less than 50% of and was adopted for
the needed Rwandan model with
datasets were significant changes.
available.

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3) Creation of land-use suitability
maps

◉ The Model Builder in ESRI’s ArcGIS 9.2 was

used to create the models for all individual
goals and objectives.
◉ the outcome was always a map with suitability
values between 1 and 9.
◉ Most of the suitability maps were based on the
distance from a specific feature.
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Steps to
develop sub
objectives

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Steps to
develop sub
objectives

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4) From suitability to preference

◉ Suitability tells us something about the

suitability of a single criterion, while preference tells us something
about community values based on a number of criteria.
◉ It is of major importance that participation and
support from all involved (stakeholder) groups is ensured.

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5) Future land-use conflict
identification

◉ preference maps of the individual land-use categories from step

four were used as input.
◉ It was important to normalize and collapse the preference maps in
order to compare them and identify conflicts.
◉ The normalization was done with the Divide tool in ArcGIS, which
can be found in the Math toolset of the Spatial Analyst toolbox.

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Polygon to Raster

◉ All cell values of the preference map were divided by the highest
value present in the concerning raster.
◉ The output raster contained values between 0 and 1.

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Normalized rasters collapsing

◉ In the second step, the normalized rasters were collapsed in three

classes: low, medium and high preference.
◉ Standard deviation to collapse preferences for even distribution.

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Reclassifing

◉ To be able to identify preference

differences and possible conflicts
between the land-use categories,
the preference rasters were
reclassified in different ways.
◉ For example, Urban was
reclassified in following way: low
preference 1, medium preference
2, and high preference 3

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Combination of Rasters

◉ The three rasters were then combined to produce a single raster

that represented potential land-use conflicts.
◉ The result was a raster with 27 values (33), describing low (1),
medium (2) and high (3) preferences for agriculture, conservation
and urban land use.

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Reclassifying the last obtained Raster

◉ By reclassifying the last

obtained raster,
◉ it was possible to get even more
insight in preferences and
conflict situations.
◉ Various combinations were used
to visualize conflicts, all based
on different combinations of the
27 values.

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Weighting of the sub objectives, objectives,
goals and preferences

◉ AHP was used as the basemethod for the

weighting process.
◉ Program used was in Right Choice DSS
◉ Decision support systems (DSS) are increasingly
being combined with geographic information
systems (GIS) to form a hybrid type of decision
support tool known as a spatial decision support
system (SDSS).
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Results – GIS Model
• The presented model aimed at integrating land-use suitability and
stakeholder wishes, which can be used as a tool for the decision
making process.
• three major land-use categories were developed: urban, agriculture
and conservation.
Project Objectives

◉ to develop a GIS ◉ To integrate

model that covers stakeholders’
urban, wishes in such
agricultural and way
conservational that they can
land-use support the
suitability decision-making
process

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Urban model

◉ The goals are stressed in the urban model: Lands most suitable for
residential land-use, office/commercial land-use, retail land-use
and industrial land-use.
◉ These were subdivided in themes that were of relevance for the
concerning objectives.
◉ to create mixed development instead of block zoning, except for
industrial zone.

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 Urban Model: Land suitable for
◉ Residential land-
use
Proximity to
 residential.
School, healthcare
 existing residential areas
and road.
 recreational areas.
 commercial/retail areas.
Physical suitability:
 Suitable soil, safe from
flood.
 Topography for residential
development.
◉ Commercial ◉ Retail ◉ Industrial
land-use land-use land-use
 Identical to that of  Suitable soils and
 Suitable soil
topography
 Land free from hazardous
 Located along roads.  Land proximal to
waste and flood potentials
Crossings of major roads

roads. Suitability of topography
 Proximity to water
 Located in urbanized  Sub objectives describing and sewer services.
area. the economical suitability
 Distant from
similar to commercial land
 Close to utility residential areas
use.
services.
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 Agricultural Model: Land suitable for

◉ Croplands ◉ Livestock ◉ Special ◉ Timberland

Physical suitability: Physical suitability: agriculture  Slopes ranging from
  22-55%.
Suitable soil Similar to that of  Similar to croplands.
croplands  Similar to croplands.
 Near existing croplands
 Economic suitability:
Land close to water
 Proximity to market
 Land not prominent to soil
erosion.  Lands close to
troublesome adjacent
Economic suitability:
land-uses.
 Proximity to market
 To avoid smell should
be placed away from
residential areas.

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 Conservation Model: Land suitable for protecting

◉ Native biodiversity ◉ Water quality ◉ Ecological processes

Main objectives:  identified lakes,  identified lakes,
 wetlands, rivers and streams wetlands, rivers and streams
Proximity to existing
with buffers of sufficient size to with buffers of sufficient size to
conservation areas
filter runoff filter runoff .
 Lands with relatively low road
 SUBOBJECTIVES: identified
density
lakes,
 Land with high native wetlands, rivers and streams
biodiversity with buffers of sufficient size to
Sub-objectives: filter runoff
 Wetlands and water bodies
 Forests
 Important Bird Areas(IBA)

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Piazza del Campo, Siena, Italy

1 A Practical example of the GIS model

• Practical example performed in order to visualize and demonstrate the working of
the previously described model
• From creating suitability maps in the beginning, up to conflict maps.
• Not be used for decision-making; only shown to demonstrate the working of the
model.

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Creating suitability maps

 A data inventory
 Determine the usability for the various objectives and sub-objectives.
 Models designed for the Florida case study were adopted and modified to fit the
Rwandan model
 Directory of the input files, output locations, and names was changed.
 Environmental settings adjusted to the Rwandan situation
 A raster file of Rwanda was created that was then used as a reference for extent, cell size,
and mask.

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 Urban model

◉ Divided into four goals.

 Land suitable for residential development

 Land suitable for office/commercial land use.
 Lands suitable for retail development
 Lands suitable for industrial development .

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 Urban Model: Goal 1
Land Suitable for Residential Land-Use

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 Urban Model: Goal 2
Land Suitable for Commercial Land-Use

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 Urban Model: Goal 3
Land Suitable for Retail Land-Use

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 Urban Model: Goal 4
Land Suitable for Industrial Land-Use

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 Urban Model: Final
Land Suitable for Urban Development

All goals of the land-

use categories were
combined into one
final map,
representing the
preference for each
land-use category
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Collapse Urban Preferences

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 Agricultural Model

◉ Divided into four goals.

 Land suitable for Croplands.

 Land suitable for Livestock.
 Lands suitable for Special Agriculture (Tea).
 Lands suitable for Timberland.

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Agriculture Model: Goal 1
Land Suitable for Cropland

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Agriculture Model: Goal 2
Land Suitable for Livestock

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 Agriculture Model: Goal 3
Land Suitable for Special Agriculture (Tea)

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Agriculture Model: Goal 4
Land Suitable for Timberland.

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 Agriculture Model: Final
Land Suitable for Agriculture Use.

All goals of the land-

use categories were
combined into one
final map,
representing the
preference for each
land-use category
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Collapse Agriculture Preference

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 Conservation Model

◉ Divided into Three goals.

 Land suitable for protecting native biodiversity.

 Land suitable for protecting Water Quality.
 Lands suitable for important ecological processes.

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 Conservation Model: Goal 1
Land Suitable for protecting Native Bio-diversity.

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 Conservation Model: Goal 2
Land Suitable for protecting water quality.

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 Conservation Model: Goal 3
Land Suitable for protecting important ecological process..

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 Conservation Model: Final
Land Suitable for permanent protection through the
application of conservation strategies.

All goals of the land-

use categories were
combined into one
final map,
representing the
preference for each
land-use category
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Collapse Conservation Preference

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Areas of Potential Land-Use Conflict

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Areas of Land-use preferences and Conflict

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 Visualising suitability and preference
maps with ortho photos as reference

 Aerial photographs at low altitudes were taken from Rwanda

 A base map at 1:50000 was prepared.
 Due to their high resolution; suitable to use as a reference for the suitability maps
 Suitability maps were combined with aerial photographs.

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Preference and conflict
map overlaid on an ortho
photo. Kigali, the capital
of Rwanda, is located on
the east side of the map.
Ortho-photo was obtained
from Swedesurvey.

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Proximity to schools overlaid on an
ortho photo. The overview map is
ideal for discovering patterns and the
close-up is for detailed planning. The
ortho photo was obtained from
Swedesurvey.

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 Tools Used

 Reclassify
By reclassifying, you can
modify the values in an
input raster and save the
changes to a new output
raster.

Source: (Tims, 2009) 57

 Tools Used

 Euclidean distance
Calculates, for each cell,
the Euclidean distance to
the closest source.

Source: (Tims, 2009) 58

 Tools Used

 Weighted Single output map

algebra
Overlays several rasters using a
common measurement scale and
weights each according to its
importance

Source: (Tims, 2009) 59

 Tools Used

 Polygon to raster
Converts polygon features to a raster
dataset.

Source: (Tims, 2009) 60

 Tools Used

 Merge
Combines input features from
multiple input sources (of the same
data type) into a single, new, output
feature class

Source: (Tims, 2009) 61

 Conclusion

 Suitability models were developed for three land-use categories using the LUCIS model.
 Suitability values are calculated to values between zero and one for a fair comparison.
 Aerial photographs were combined with suitability and preference maps.
 A significant number of datasets is missing, and can therefore not be used to draw real
conclusions

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