Assessment of the Soil Information and Analysis of Related Land Constraints to the Selected Detailed Town Planning Schemes in Morogoro Municipal

Abstract

In Tanzania, land use and planning are under the land authority. They are responsible for ensuring sustainable land use and management in urban and rural areas. Nevertheless, lack of adherence to the soil to detailed soil properties and land use constraints by urban planners, urban explosions in different areas in Tanzania, particularly Morogoro have been a big issue of concern as it poses danger to the environment and also to themselves as urban areas they are also vulnerable to land use constraints such as flood, erosion, water logging, erosion hazards and rock outcrop. This study aims to assess the available soil information and analyze land constraints related to the Selected Detailed Town Planning Schemes in Morogoro Municipal so as to address failures of the current urban planning approach. Detailed soil information provided by the municipality and literature of previous studies were accessed. A total of six land use constraints: poor drainage and waterlogging, rock outcrop, erosion hazard, flood hazard, soil depth and surface slope were analyzed in this study to map major land use constraints in the study area. A geospatial analysis approach was used to combine these constraints so as to map total land use constraints and asses the spatial distribution of the constraints. Finally, detailed land use schemes accessed from the Morogoro land management authority were digitized and overlayed on the constraints map. Detailed schemes approved in areas of Mkundi have shown to be a success as these areas have the lowest land use constraints whilst areas of Kilakala, and Mlimani has been a failure due to high slope, erosion hazards and shallow soil, the middle part of Morogoro including the new Kingalu market have been a failure and costly due to flood and water logging mitigations.