Assessment of Urban Greenery Status in Major Cities of Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

This work aims at studying different green spaces’ experiences in developed countries and extrapolates the experiences to Oromia cities in Ethiopia; in order to investigate and promote greenery infrastructure in selected cities. To do that greenery practice performance data were collected in four cities, which were classified into two groups as good and weak performers. As a result, Adama and Bishoftu cities were good urban greenery performers whereas Burayu and Sebeta were weak performers. The cities were also selected non-randomly to investigate the current urban greenery practice and different green areas in each city. Eight green areas were taken as samples for observation, where qualitative and quantitative data were collected from primary and secondary sources. The assessment of data confirmed that green areas along the roadside, recreational parks, open areas, and nursery sites existed in most cities. The urban plan of some cities does exclude most green area components. Greenery sites in Bishoftu and Adama are relatively better, while in Burayu and Sebeta urban greenery are highly abused for changing to another type of land use, e.g., residential and institutional areas. The technical skills of tree planting, care, protection, and management were also observed as a collective resource.