The Socioeconomic and Environmental Implications of Urban Sprawl on the Coastline of Douala-Cameroon. Options for Integrated Coastal Management

Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Oceanography, grade: A (91/100), Xiamen University (Coastal and Ocean Management Institute), course: Marine Affairs, language: English, abstract: The geodynamics of the coastal stretch naturally serve as a convergence point for anthropogenic settlements world-wide. On a global scale, coastal areas occupy 20 percent of the Earth¿s surface, yet they harbour approximately 50 percent of human population living within 200 km of the coast (UN, 2002). The continuous occupancy of the coastal milieu with limited resources and increasing economic hardship has resulted to uncoordinated spatial layout of urban settlement, termed urban sprawl. Urban sprawl, though not a new phenomenon, remains a challenge for most decision makers of the world, of which, Cameroon is not an exception. The challenge is further compounded by the fact that sprawl is not well circumscribed as there is no universally accepted definition for it. This paper, therefore, addresses the socioeconomic and environmental implications of urban sprawl on the coastline of Douala-Cameroon by making use of qualitative and quantitative research methodology. Emphatic analyses of some of the hypothesis are made with the use of land value models of William Alonso, Earnest Burgess, Chauncy Harris, and Edward Ullman. Douala, the economic capital and main seaport of Cameroon, is the industrial nerve of the country. Douala harbours almost 80% of the Cameroon¿s industries (Angwe and Gabche, 1997) and because of the nature and varied economic activity; it is the fastest growing area of Cameroon. The fast growing nature of the town coupled with poor management strategies have meant that there is a lot of pressure exerted on its coastal resources. There is, therefore, a need for proposed long-lasting solutions to reverse or attenuate the prevailing situation. This study elucidates a brief background of Cameroon and paints a vivid picture on the morphological aspect of sprawl as well as its socioeconomic connotations. The work also examines the key players involved in shaping the urban planning process in Douala and further x-ray gaps inhibiting sustainable urban planning in Cameroon. Moreover, the paper examines Xiamen¿s socioeconomic and environmental atmosphere before and after the implementation of Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) and, it is, however, deduced that, the entrusting of more powers to local governments to implement new environmental laws and welcoming of multilateral and bilateral assistance by the Chinese Central Government acted as a crunch since the introduction of ICM (Chen and Juha, 2003). [...]