Management of catchment for the protection of source water in the Densu River basin, Ghana: implications for rural communities

ABSTRACT

Since the 1990s, integrated catchment management (ICM) has been promoted as a holistic and integrated approach to water resources management. However, there is evidence to show that the costs and benefits associated with ICM are often inequitably distributed. This study investigates impacts of the implementation of catchment strategies on four rural communities and the coping mechanisms available to residents to cope with concomitant socioeconomic hardships within the Densu River basin, Ghana. The study relies on data collected through reviewing regulatory and policy documents, interviews, observations, and a household survey of 327 respondents. The results show that the implementation of the catchment strategies has negatively impacted the economies of all communities leading to local resistance. Increasing unemployment, decreasing incomes, and decreasing sales are generating increasing crime rates, out migration, and changing gender roles with additional burden on women. What compounds the problem are that socioeconomic interventions and coping mechanisms have failed to make any significant impact. We argue that for effective ICM, proportional representation of local people on catchment committees should be central in order to incorporate a thorough understanding of the local socioeconomic issues and integrating those issues into the implementation process; otherwise catchment strategies risk disproportionately impacting rural communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Coping mechanisms
• water management
• multi-stakeholders
• costs and benefits
• catchment committee
• and sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the University of South Florida’s Tharp Endowed Scholarship. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the three reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments. We are also grateful to all the institutions in Ghana that offered support in diverse ways to us during the fieldwork. We would also like to express our heartfelt gratitude to all the local residents in the communities who showed interests in our study and willingly offered to participate.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘Galamsey, pollution destroying water bodies in Ghana – Water Company’. Retrieved April 1, 2019. http://citifmonline.com/2017/03/22/galamsey-pollution-destroying-water-bodies-in-ghana-water-company/.

2 ‘Fighting ‘Galamsey’ and River Pollution in Ghana’. Retrieved April 1, 2019. http://ghana.gov.gh/index.php/media-center/features/3187-fighting-galamsey-and-river-pollution-in-ghana.

3 ‘Minimum Wages in Ghana with effect from 01-01-2018 to 31-12-2018’. Retrieved April 1, 2019. https://mywage.org/ghana/home/salary/minimum-wages.