Taubman College Larsen Leads Collaborative Mapping Project in Ethiopia
Larissa Larsen, associate professor of urban planning, leads a collaborative land cover mapping project in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city, with three U-M graduate urban planning students, faculty and students at Addis Ababa University and city planning staff.
Addis Ababa, one of the fastest growing cities in Africa, suffers from water pollution and seasonal flooding, challenging development in many parts of the city and threatening residents’ health. Water management is one of the city’s largest problems, but effective watershed planning requires accurate land cover data. This summer, Larsen and collaborators will examine areas of land cover change in order to identify high risk flooding areas for land use restrictions and suggest where green infrastructure projects for stormwater attenuation would be most effective.
