This study developed in the city of Xa-Xai, in view of the current debate on urban growth and environmental quality, analyses the relationship between the process of its occupation and environmental conditions between 2000 and 2016 focusing on spatial variation. The main environmental problems of the city of Xai-Xai include soil erosion and flooding, giving rise to others when the respective areas are subject to human occupation varying according to the particularities of the space between low and high areas. There were limitations in the capacity of diagnosis and control of techniques of soil and relief correction, as well as lack of evidence of a future environmental approach in the process of space occupation. There is a relationship between the occurrence and worsening of environmental problems and their variations in the city of Xai-Xai because their growth rate and dynamics are higher than the capacity of its current management. It is suggested, better monitoring of the corrective techniques, adopting in parallel with the legal measures, ecological alternatives, the specialization of the types of occupation of the space projecting the territorial planning (OT) for the current and future environmental quality.