Architecture and Planning:

Title:           Socio economic impact assessment of stone quarrying in Thika municipality; a case study of Nanasi area block 14
Authors:      Anita Nyapala Okoko, Hellen Kamwele
Abstract:     In Kenya quarrying presents both an environmental and economic development dimension due to increased demand of housing construction materials as a result urban growth and also roads expansion.It is the pace at which quarries in Kenya are established, exploited and abandoned that poses a challenge to national development planners, environmental managers and local government policy-makers in terms of quarrying regulation, their management and rehabilitation of derelict land. According to the Economic survey of 2009 by the Kenya Bureau of Statistics (KBS) there are over thirty thousand quarries scattered all over the country. The quarry report of 2010 by the Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources alludes to poor management of quarries by the mere fact that 90% of the quarries have no rehabilitation plan. One fact is that over a million Kenyans are employed either as permanent or casual labourers by quarrying companies, a job that ends as soon as quality stones and minerals are exhausted. The jobs are not adequately paying and a lot of underage employees are recruited because they provide cheap labour. A part from the economic scenario above, quarrying degrades land and reduces its value. It also degrades the landscape by leaving unfilled pits and a fragile soils ructure. People also die in the ten to nineteen meter deep pits left behind after quarrying. There is also the issue of organized crime and drug peddling in the abandoned pits making an area with quarrying activities very scary to live in. Considering all these, a study was undertaken that aimed to make Nanasi Zone, one of the quarrying areas in Thika Municipality of Central Kenya, the most environmentally sustainable quarrying area to live and invest in after quarrying is completed. Additionally, a plan was designed to factor in the 5years when quarry activities continue. In order to realise a habitable, rehabilitated and environmentally friendly quarry zone, efforts were made to assess the socio-economic and environmental needs of the area. The assessment considered existing population, land-uses, land value and environmental conditions in Block 14. A socio-economic survey on the squatters, their current livelihoods and other income support were analysed. Key population, land management, livelihoods and environmental parameters were captured by the survey. This information led to a project presented here that has an integrated approach to ensure area-based socio-economic and environmental sustainability.

Keywords:   Quarrying, Quarrying Zone, Land value, Socio economic, Environmental, Sustainability, NEMA (National Environment Management Authority)
Pages:           451-454

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