Environmental Urban Plan for Failaka Island, Kuwait: A Study in Urban Geomorphology

Ahmed Hassan, Muhammad G Almatar, Magdy Torab and Casey D Allen
Additional contact information
Ahmed Hassan: Kuwait Ministry of Education, Kuwait 50001, Kuwait
Muhammad G Almatar: Department of Geography, College of Social Sciences, Kuwait University, Kuwait 5969, Kuwait
Magdy Torab: Department of Geography, Damanhur University, Damanhur 22511, Egypt
Casey D Allen: Department of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, The University of the West Indies, Bridgetown TA22, Barbados

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 17, 1-21

Abstract: Failaka Island, located in the far east of Kuwait Bay about 20 km from the State of Kuwait’s coast, represents a focal point for regional geography and history, including natural wonders and archaeological sites dating to the Bronze, Iron, Hellenistic, Christian and Islamic periods. According to environmental data and in coordination with local authorities to develop an urban plan, the island is set to become the first tourist destination for the State of Kuwait. To achieve the Vision of Kuwait 2035, one of the planning objectives centers on Urban Planning for the Establishment of Environmental Cities that Achieve (UPEECA) environmental sustainability criteria. The article then, aims to propose the environmental urban plan for Failaka Island. Based around Environmental Analytical Hierarchical Processes (EAHP) and using the Field Calculator and ModelBuilder functions in ArcGIS, this research centers on the feasibility of carrying out an urban plan using suitability modeling that incorporates 4 factors and 13 criteria covering the island’s ecological and human composition. This study utilizes both remote sensing (Unmanned aerial vehicles UAVs for 3D imaging) and field study (ground truthing) to identify changes in land use and land cover—such as using sample analysis of the historical sites and soils for tracing evidence and creating/updating a soil map—and create the first geographic information systems (GIS) database for the island that can lead capable of generating a suitability model.

Keywords: urban geomorphology; sustainable environment; suitability model-GIS; environmental analytical hierarchical process (EAHP); Failaka Island (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/7125/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/7125/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:17:p:7125-:d:407173

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().