Analysis of the Social-Ecological Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Ghana: Application of the DPSIR Framework

Kyere-Boateng, Richard; Marek, Michal V.

doi:10.3390/f12040409

Cited by 58 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…Forest cover loss has accelerated in recent decades [12,21,23]. The loss of forest cover attributed to anthropogenic causes in Ghana is currently alarming and progressing at an annual rate of 2%; thus, approximately 135,000 hectares annually [23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Monocropping on Land Cover Transitions in the Wet Evergreen Agro-Ecological Zone of Ghana

Loh

Asubonteng

Adanu

2022

Land

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The wet evergreen forest ecological zone of Ghana is undergoing notable structural changes, although most maps erroneously depict the area to be an intact forest. Several hectares of plantation agriculture such as rubber, oil palm, and cocoa are replacing the natural vegetation and habitats, thereby threatening indigenous biodiversity. This study aimed to assess the effects of tree monocrop proliferation on landscape transitions between 1986 and 2020 in the Wassa East District of Ghana. The ISODATA clustering technique was used to produce land cover category maps from Landsat images of 1986, 2002, and 2020. A post-classification change detection technique resulted in transition matrices which were used for the computation of land cover transition intensities over 34 years. The results showed that the landscape was dominated by forests in 1986. Still, the forest continuously declined by 34% (1% annually) in 2020 while all other land cover types increased in both periods with cocoa covering 23% oil palm covering 14%, and rubber covering 2% of the land area. These conversions in the land area are important, especially since the closed forests usually transition to monocrops through the intermediate process: food crop farming. This information is essential for decision making on land development and biodiversity conservation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Monocropping on Land Cover Transitions in the Wet Evergreen Agro-Ecological Zone of Ghana

Loh

Asubonteng

Adanu

2022

Land

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“…In turn, shifting land dynamics are influential in altering anthropogenic characteristics such as culture, economics, and urban expansion (Owusu, 2009;Edusah, 2011;Frondoni et al, 2011). Although governments have often created protective policies in an attempt to preserve environmental stability, a lack of enforcement and the continuation of illegal activity strains these boundaries (Nang, 2016;Kyere-Boateng and Marek, 2021). Ecologically detrimental practices have been a complicated problem to address, in part due to difficulties in identifying definitive long-term consequences of these interferences (Frondoni et al, 2011;Malhi et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Structural Equation Modeling Approach to Disentangling Regional-Scale Landscape Dynamics in Ghana

Peeling

Singh

Judge

2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Land cover (LC) change is an integrative indicator of changes in ecosystems due to anthropogenic or natural forcings. There is a significant interest in the investigation of spatio-temporal patterns of LC transitions, and the causes and consequences thereof. While the advent of satellite remote sensing techniques have enhanced our ability to track and measure LC changes across the globe, significant gaps remain in disentangling specific factors that influence, or in certain cases, are influenced by, LC change. This study aims to investigate the relative influence of regional-scale bioclimatology and local-scale anthropogenic factors in driving LC and environmental change in Ghana. This analysis builds upon previous research in the region that has highlighted multiple drivers of LC change in the region, especially via drivers such as deforestation, urbanization, and agricultural expansion. It used regional-scale remotely sensed, demographic, and environmental data for Ghana across 20 years and developed path models on causal factors influencing LC transitions in Ghana. A two-step process is utilized wherein causal linkages from an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) are constrained with literature-based theoretical constructs to implement a regional-scale partial least squares path model (PLSPM). The PLSPM reveals complex interrelationships among drivers of LC change that vary across the geography of Ghana. The model suggests strong effects of local urban expansion on deforestation and vegetation losses in urban and peri-urban areas. Losses of vegetation are in turn related to increases in local heating patterns indicative of urban heat island effects. Direct effects of heat islands are however masked by strong latitudinal gradients in climatological factors. The models confirm that decreases in vegetation cover results in increased land surface albedo that is indirectly related to urban and population expansion. These empirically-estimated causal linkages provide insights into complex spatio-temporal variations in potential drivers of LC change. We expect these models and spatial data products to form the basis for detailed investigations into the mechanistic underpinnings of land cover dynamics across Ghana. These analyses are aimed at building a template for methods that can be utilized to holistically design spatially-disaggregated strategies for sustainable development across Ghana.

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“…The forest is also an important carbon sink system, reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere [3,4]. Although forests have brought huge benefits, the problem of deforestation still exists, and the global forest area is declining [5][6][7]. Therefore, afforestation has been used as an effective strategy to alleviate global warming, especially in mountainous and hilly areas with little economic value.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tree Recognition on the Plantation Using UAV Images with Ultrahigh Spatial Resolution in a Complex Environment

et al. 2021

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The survival rate of seedlings is a decisive factor of afforestation assessment. Generally, ground checking is more accurate than any other methods. However, the survival rate of seedlings can be higher in the growing season, and this can be estimated in a larger area at a relatively lower cost by extracting the tree crown from the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images, which provides an opportunity for monitoring afforestation in an extensive area. At present, studies on extracting individual tree crowns under the complex ground vegetation conditions are limited. Based on the afforestation images obtained by airborne consumer-grade cameras in central China, this study proposes a method of extracting and fusing multiple radii morphological features to obtain the potential crown. A random forest (RF) was used to identify the regions extracted from the images, and then the recognized crown regions were fused selectively according to the distance. A low-cost individual crown recognition framework was constructed for rapid checking of planted trees. The method was tested in two afforestation areas of 5950 m2 and 5840 m2, with a population of 2418 trees (Koelreuteria) in total. Due to the complex terrain of the sample plot, high weed coverage, the crown width of trees, and spacing of saplings vary greatly, which increases both the difficulty and complexity of crown extraction. Nevertheless, recall and F-score of the proposed method reached 93.29%, 91.22%, and 92.24% precisions, respectively, and 2212 trees were correctly recognized and located. The results show that the proposed method is robust to the change of brightness and to splitting up of a multi-directional tree crown, and is an automatic solution for afforestation verification.

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Analysis of the Social-Ecological Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Ghana: Application of the DPSIR Framework

Cited by 58 publications

References 87 publications

Effects of Monocropping on Land Cover Transitions in the Wet Evergreen Agro-Ecological Zone of Ghana

Effects of Monocropping on Land Cover Transitions in the Wet Evergreen Agro-Ecological Zone of Ghana

A Structural Equation Modeling Approach to Disentangling Regional-Scale Landscape Dynamics in Ghana

Tree Recognition on the Plantation Using UAV Images with Ultrahigh Spatial Resolution in a Complex Environment

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