Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have provided effective and useful methods that are widely used to measure spatial access to services and to inform the planning of public facilities and infrastructures. The development of innovative GIS tools has informed approaches for researching demographic and socioeconomic problems. Nevertheless, GIS methods have not yet been developed for construction of water indices that can provide measures of household accessibility to safe drinking water at the finest spatial scales such as district and sub-district. There has, to date, not been any integrated measurement of access to safe drinking water that can be used as a practical tool to quantitatively identify small areas suffering from poor water supplies or households who use unimproved water sources. A comprehensive and structured review of the literature indicates that although there is international emphasis on drinking water problems in developing countries, there is a wide gap in relation to the current international measurements and programmes set up to measure and monitor access to safe drinking water. This includes efforts made by the United Nations (UN) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to measure and monitor access to safe water. These measurements are not only limited in terms of the socioeconomic factors impacting safe water access but also have not addressed measurement at the sub-national resolution level of residential communities and spatial variation within individual countries. Therefore, the available measurements neither provide a convincing picture of water accessibility nor a spatially detailed measurement. To bridge this gap, this study introduces new GIS analysis techniques for the measurement of access to safe drinking water as a global problem in the developing world. The main objective is to develop a multivariate index which measures current access to safe drinking water using datasets commonly available in lower and lower middle income countries. It draws on a wider range of data than current United Nations monitoring efforts. GPS coordinates are increasingly collected as a part of household surveys, particularly in the developing world. This offers great opportunities to enhance national census data about drinking water by spatial linkage with other survey sources. Egypt was chosen as a case study and spatial linkage was undertaken between the 2005 Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and the 2006 Egyptian population census in order to develop indicators that reflect household access to safe drinking water. Understanding the spatial uncertainty associated with linking points (DHS GPS clusters) to polygons (sub-governorate census districts) was essential. Consequently, positional error relevant to DHS GPS clusters was detected, validated, measured and modelled. Selection criteria were developed for choosing the index components and a method for scoring these components was implemented. This was followed by standardisation and weighting of the components before combining them all into a single index. A map demonstrating index values for all Egyptian districts has been created. The index was evaluated against health factors to examine the influences of water accessibility on public health. The same types of datasets (DHS and local census) about another country (Jordan) were explored to examine potential index transferability. This was based on assessing the positional accuracy of the GPS clusters of the Jordanian DHS and evaluating the index construction. Potential limitations of this measurement were discussed and recommendations for further research suggested. Future policies options with a wider incorporation and implementation of GIS and spatial analysis methods were also considered

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The effect of climate change and land use change on runoff generation and flooding has received great attention in many hydrological modelling studies. However, currently many hydrologists are still uncertain how much these two factors contribute to runoff generation, particularly in monsoon catchments. The river Kelantan is in one of the states in Malaysia, which experiences monsoon flooding, was used to investigate these two factors in effecting hydrologic response changes. Therefore, this study tries to provide a framework mainly to i) identify trends in the River Kelantan streamflow and explore the possible causes of that change, including precipitation change and land use changes; ii) disentangle and quantify the precipitation and land use and change effects on hydrological response and potential flooding in the River Kelantan catchment using past and current hydrological events; iii) simulate the future runoff scenarios (i.e. 2020s, 2050s and 2080s) using precipitation and land use changes projections. Historical data on the streamflow of the River Kelantan and precipitation in the Kelantan catchment were investigated for trends using the Mann-Kendall non-parametric method. In summary, a general pattern has been revealed in which streamflow is increasing in all seasons upstream, but is decreasing in the dry season downstream. The pattern in streamflow downstream is fairly well matched by increases in precipitation in the wet season and decreases in precipitation in the dry season. In the upstream area, the increases in streamflow are not matched by universal increases in precipitation, but rather by increases in the wet season only and decreases in the dry season, as for the downstream sub-catchment. The increases in streamflow in the dry season are, thus, more difficult to explain and land use change been performed and has been proven to cause a partial contribution of such observed trend in the upstream area. Subsequently, a study using the lumped HEC-HMS model to disentangle these two factors in causing hydrologic response changes (i.e. peak discharge and runoff volume) was performed. The results demonstrate that for the upstream area precipitation and land use changes led to the greatest increases in peak discharge and runoff volume. In contrast, in the downstream area the results suggest that precipitation trends may have led to significant increases in runoff generation. The simulation of hydrologic response in the future (i.e. 2020s, 2050s and 2080s) showed that climate change (i.e. precipitation change) has positive links with the peak discharge and runoff volume. If precipitation estimated to decrease using PRECIS A1B storyline from the SRES scenario, runoff was predicted to decrease and vice-versa. For the land use change impact, the scenario involved reducing the forested area, increasing the agricultural and built-up land caused runoff estimated to increase from 2020s to 2080s. The combined scenario demonstrated that precipitation change coupled with land use change has a significant impact to changes in peak discharge and runoff volume for the study area compared to climate change and land use change studies alone

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Bangalore, Barcelona and Singapore are just three of the many “model cities” identified in urban studies. Such model cities constitute a phenomenon which has received little critical attention in urban studies, though there has been much progress in the related fields of urban policy mobilities, comparative urbanism and global urbanism. This thesis builds upon these contributions whilst concentrating specifically on the model city. It defines three core characteristics of grounded model cities – i.e. models based on actually-existing cities - in the twenty-first century and conceptualises model cities as argumentative resources, mobilised in debates about urban development. Having indicated how this conceptualisation can help with the identification of model cities, the remainder of the thesis historicises the contemporary phenomenon of the model city in order to establish its origins and identify other argumentative resources that might be mobilised instead. The thesis makes reference to three archival sources. These are the Association of Municipal Corporations/Association of Metropolitan Authorities (AMC/AMA); International Federation for Housing and Planning (IFHP) and the journal Town Planning Review. These institutions provide an account of the changing nature of argumentation about urban development in the twentieth century within the two constituencies of planning and local government, at national and also international scales and between practitioners and academics. Each archive demonstrates a trend toward the emergence of grounded model cities. Besides the grounded model city, other argumentative resources identified include the illustrative city, the model national system, the utopian model city and the rational model city. The thesis concludes with a typology the various kinds of argumentative resources identified as well as a periodization of model cities on the basis of the types observed. Utopian model cities, exemplified by Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City, were commonly invoked earlier in the twentieth century, whilst rational model cities took centre stage in the 1950s and 1960s. Since then the grounded model cities have been cited with increasing frequency in discussions of urban policy, though the broader classification of illustrative cities remains significant also. The relative periods of ascendancy of each kind of these argumentative resources is explained with reference to changes within the particular institutions studied and the wider professional contexts in which they were embedded.

Tourism destination usually viewed as a combination of places that generates not just experience but offers a memorable destination experience to the tourists. The challenge for today's tourism destination agencies is for them to offer what is needed by travellers. Currently, the tourism sector in Tanzania is in stiff competition with countries such as Kenya and South Africa in attracting more tourists. For a country to stay ahead of the competition, it is imperative for tourism stakeholders to understand various means for attracting the tourists, including the preferences for travel activities. This study aimed at offering an integrated approach to understanding tourists' travel activities and assesses its relationship with travel motivation and personality traits. Responses from a total of 431 respondents aged 18 and above was obtained through convenience sampling and used in the analysis. The study identified visiting city attractions, islands and beaches as top three preferred travel activities by tourists and visiting casinos and nightclubs as the least preferred activities. Moreover, the study examined the differences in preference for travel activities among the domestic and international travel markets. It was found that the two markets significantly differ in terms of preferences for a beach, visiting city attractions, going to nightclubs, purchasing traditional clothes and jewellery, as well as camping. Additionally, the study also examined whether demographic factors such as marital status, family size and occupation have any significant effect on preference for travel activities. Of all demographic factors, only occupation was proven to have a significant influence on activities such as visiting beaches and islands and purchasing traditional clothes. The study further tested the structural relationships between travel motivations, personality, destination image and travel activities using structural equation modelling. The main findings suggest that travel motivations and personality have an influence on preference for travel activities. More specifically, sightseeing activities were positively influenced by social, intellectual and stimulus avoidance travel motivations while outdoor activities were positively influenced by mastery competency travel motivation. Apart from travel motivations, this study also found that that closed to new experience personality positively influenced shopping activities while neurotic personality influenced sightseeing negatively. This study also examined the role of destination image in mediating the effect of travel motivation and personality in influencing travel activities. The overall finding indicated that there was only direct effect and that there was no mediation effect. Despite the fact that destination image did not mediate the former relationships it influenced sightseeing, shopping, and entertainment activities positively.

This study reviews four main approaches to the study of food supply for the urban areas of the developing world and finds them to be narrow in their foci and limited by the demands of the disciplines in which they have been developed. In order to overcome these difficulties, this study proposes a synthesis of the approaches for the study of the supply of fruit and vegetables to Dar es Salaam. This approach examines the problem of food supply through the evidence of price and volume data, of interviews and interview surveys, of observations of the marketing process and it integrates interpretation of literature and the evidence of observers in the field. The only state control exerted on the marketing of fruit and vegetables in Dar es Salaam, has been that it must be sold through the Kariakoo Wholesale Market. This market's role in wholesale trading has declined in favour of the emerging informal sector, during a period of more general economic liberalisation, which took place in Tanzania outwith state control during the 1980s. However, Kariakoo maintains a central role, handling approximately half of the city's fruit and vegetables. The informal sector for wholesale trading of fruit and vegetables has moved to more peripheral markets, where it is possible to distribute the produce more rapidly and at less cost. At each stage in the marketing system the participants have a range of options open to them. The choice of channel into which they sell their produce, depends on a trade-off between costs and price, which varies according to the commodity to be sold. The result is that vegetables tend to favour Kariakoo Wholesale Market and the city council maintained retail markets, while fruit tend to be traded at the informal wholesale markets and may be sold retail either in a retail market or at a street stall. There is an increasing trend for produce to be sold to informal wholesale traders at the nearest market on entering the city.

This thesis takes a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the characteristics, quality and production of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), through examining the emergent method of Community Mapping in developing countries. While a good understanding exists of the nature of the characteristics, quality and production of VGI in developed countries there is little covering developing countries. This thesis reviews the state of the art and theoretical approaches in Geography, Human Factors and Geographic Information Science. Research methods of Human Factors, specifically Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) and geospatial quality assessment are also discussed. Through a mixed methods approach, the characteristics of Community Mapping are examined and contrasted against those in developed countries. Consequently the quality of data produced and its mode of production are examined, enabled through the construction of a CWA to situate and explore constraints of the developing world case. By discussing the results and conclusions of these studies, this thesis provides an agenda for the understanding geospatial data quality in developing countries and, specifically, informal urban areas known by their more colloquial moniker of `slums'. By involving the community in data production and decision making it adheres to the CWA principles and ethics of respectful, user centric design. In assessing the quality of the data produced and the needs of community members around tools we create design guidelines for the development of future tools. Finally, this thesis considers how the characteristics of Community Mapping could and should be considered in the use and reuse of spatial data by its integration into Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). In conclusion, a conceptual framework for the development of VGI in developing countries is produced, alongside other avenues for further work for the theories, software and communities nurtured as part of this thesis.