ANALYZING IMPACTS OF URBANISATION AND LANDUSE OR LANDCOVER ON MTANDIRE AREA, LILONGWE DISTRICT

From 1998 to 2018, the population of Malawi have been increasing. Despite of the increase in birth rates, urbanization have played the role since there is a movement of people from rural areas to urban centres due to availability of better social services and job opportunities (Eurostat, 2016). This is so because city life is associated with better living standards compared to remote cultural life. Since a large number of people move to urban areas, there is competitive demand on life sustaining resources which leads to over exploitation (Mc Granaham, 2014). Therefore, Urbanization is becoming a megatrend of global land use or land cover changes.
Urbanization and land use or land cover changes leads to changes in climate pattern of an area (Ramesh, 2013). When areas are turned into settlements and agricultural fields, some of the vegetation are removed which influences surface run off during rainy season. Ramesh stated that land use or land cover for remote or rural area, remain constant for a long period of time while in urban area, it undergoes changes due to increase in population. This situation is very similar in Lilongwe district which is the capital city of Malawi. As population increases, there is pressure on land thereby making people move to other places like Mtandire, near Lingadzi River. These people search for suitable land to be used as agricultural fields and settlement. Some of them are turning the area into sand mining in order to generate income.
The impacts of urbanization and land use or cover on Mtandire area was analysed using census and satellite data. The census data provided by National Statistical Office (NSO) shows urban population growth of Mtandire area in 1998, 2008 and 2018. Based on internal-district migration, it clearly shows that the lifetime inflow of migrants to cities and other non-city districts is still increasing.