Case Study On: Impact of urban expansion on agricultural land: the case of Lalibela Town, Amhara Regional state, Ethiopia

Abstract

The paper is addressing the impact of urban expansion on agricultural land in Lalibela town, Amhara regional state, Ethiopia and the most problems that occurs in the study area arereducing the amount of urban and rural agricultural lands, displacement of farmers from their agricultural land, loss of the most productive agricultural land, and land disputes.The town covers an area of 92,166 kilometer square and it is one the municipal woreda witha population of 51,328.It consists of six (6) woredas. Tools and methods include questionnaires for affected households,focus group discussion, field observation and from the municipal and agricultural development office through interview were applied to investigate on the impact of urban expansion on agricultural land. To meet the general objective, the following specific objectives were set: determining the amount of agricultural land lose caused by urban expansion andassessing the driving forces for urban expansion on agricultural land in the study area. The collected data results showed that, there were rapid conversions of agricultural land for urban use in Lalibela woreda. During the year 2011-2020 more than 1543 hectares amount of agricultural land were used for residential land use in Lalibela town. The main driving forces contributed for urban expansion on agricultural land were increase in population through rural to urban migration and natural increase in the town.There are different mechanisms to reduce losses of agricultural land due to urban expansion. Such as, vertical urban development, compact settlement, applying zoning regulation of the town, building social service at kebele level to minimize rural-urban migration, use properly family planning method, building condominium, the expansion of the town must consider agricultural land and the local government must take in to account the agricultural land to protect from urban expansion.