Biophysical Environment Degradation and Housing Development in Enugu Urban

Abstract

The essence of this study is to carry out an empirical analysis of biophysical environment degradation and housing development in Enugu Urban. The theoretical framework adopted in this study is the functionalist housing theory. The study adopted the survey method and data was collected from thirty (30) respondents distributed among three estates, namely, Fidelity Estate, Maryland Estate and Bethel Estate all in Enugu Urban, Enugu State Nigeria. Data for this study was analyzed with the ordinal logistic regression. This is justified on the fact that ordinal logistic regression is used to predict an ordinal dependent variable given one or more independent variables. The major findings of the study were that housing development in Enugu metropolis has a negative and significant impact on water quality and housing development in Enugu State has a negative and significant impact on soil quality. It is therefore the recommendation of this study that the housing authorities in Enugu Urban should institute measures to ensure that housing development does not compromise environmental quality, house owners, Estate developers and indeed all residents should be properly sensitized through environmental education on the dangers of abusing environmental standards.