Exploring Land use and Land cover change in themining areas of Wa East District, Ghana usingSatellite Imagery

Abstract

Satellite imagery has been widely used to monitor the extent of environmental change in both mine and post mine areas. This study uses Remote sensing and Geographical Information System techniques for the assessment of land use/land cover dynamics of mine related areas in Wa East District of Ghana. Landsat satellite imageries of three different time periods, i.e., 1991, 2000 and 2014 were used to quantify the land use/cover changes in the area. Supervised Classification using Maximum Likelihood Technique in ERDAS was utilized. The images were categorized into five different classes: Open Savannah, Closed Savannah, Bare Areas, Settlement and Water. Image differencing method of change detection was used to investigate the changes. Normalized Differential Vegetative Index values were used to correlate the state of healthy vegetation. The image differencing showed a positive correlation to the changes in the Land use and Land cover classes. NDVI values reduced from 0.48 to 0.11. The land use change matrix also showed conversion of savannah areas into bare ground and settlement. Open and close savannah reduced from 50.80% to 36.5% and 27.80% to 22.67% respectively whiles bare land and settlement increased. Overall accuracy of classified 2014 image and kappa statistics was 83.20% and 0.761 respectively. The study revealed the declining nature of the vegetation and the significance of using satellite imagery. A higher resolution satellite Imagery is however needed to satisfactorily delineate mine areas from other bare areas in such Savannah zones.

Land Cover Changes in Ghana over the Past 24 Years

“…Hence, it is imperative to continuously monitor LULC changes to identify resulting challenges and needs for action. Since geospatial technologies are not well developed in most developing countries including Ghana, Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System techniques are essential tools for studying LULC at various spatiotemporal scales [15][16][17]. Several authors have applied these methods to study LULC changes in Ghana across various spatial and temporal scales spanning regional, district, city/municipal and river basin scales and covering between few and several years.…”

Landscape evolution in ferruginous geosystems of the Iron Quadrangle, Brazil: a speleological approach in a biodiversity hotspot

“…Changes in land cover in mining areas have stimulated the development of researches in several countries such Australia [31], India [30,61], Canada [50], China [36], Ghana [4] and also in Brazil [69,70]. As presented in this paper, the results of those surveys reveal the substitution of native vegetation cover by pits, tailings dams and others mining facilities, but none of them specifically addresses the issue of impacts to speleological heritage.…”

A Review of Fine-Scale Land Use and Land Cover Classification in Open-Pit Mining Areas by Remote Sensing Techniques

“…Some studies have explored the effects of mining using mining information [42,[94][95][96][97]. For example, Palmer et al [98] systematically discussed the consequences of mountaintop mining, such as ecological losses, downstream impacts, and threats to human health.…”