TITLE:
Urbanization and Its Impacts to Food Systems and Environmental Sustainability in Urban Space: Evidence from Urban Agriculture Livelihoods in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
AUTHORS:
Wakuru Magigi
KEYWORDS:
Urbanization; Food Systems; Environmental Sustainability; Urban Space; Urban Agriculture; Livelihoods
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.4 No.10,
October
10,
2013
ABSTRACT:
Urbanisation is the key factor underpinning
and catalysing changes in food systems, environmental quality, climate change and
agriculture livelihoods in the overall urban ecosystem setting and its sustainability.
The paper explores Dar es Salaam, a rapidly expanding city in Sub-Saharan Africa,
and shows that urban agriculture provides urban ecosystem services and contributes
to environmental sustainability. The interconnections of environmental justice,
urban ecosystem services and climate change and variability found eminent feature
that influence land governance, productivity and aesthetic value of the city. The
study reaffirms the pivotal role urban agriculture which plays to enhance community health services
and access to resources, with important implications on urban environmental sustainability
and redistributive spatial land use planning policies and practices. The process
of urbanisation, forms of urban agriculture and government strategies for enhanced
urban food systems in the city economy have been highlighted. Equally, the process
triggers the transformation of settlements from rural in character to modernity
with an augmented land use conflicts. The results suggests that with increasing
population, a clear spatial land use planning and management strategy is required
to overcome the challenges and enhanced food systems and urban environmental sustainability
in rapidly urbanizing cities like Dar es Salaam in Sub-Saharan Africa.