Built-up area expansion in the Wa Municipality of Ghana: implications for vegetation cover loss and fragmentation

ABSTRACT

This study draws on the patch-mosaic model and uses geospatial and statistical methods to assess vegetation fragmentation specifically from built-up area expansion between 1990 and 2018 in the Wa Municipality of Ghana. The study finds that 0.19% and 0.33% annual expansion in the built-up area from 1990-2006 and 2006-2018 contributed to annual vegetation patch size variability (coefficient of variation in the patch size) of 1.82% and 120.97% from 1990-2006 and 2006-2018, respectively. Our results suggest that a higher rate of increase in built-up area would likely create larger quantities of intermixed vegetation and built-up patches.

KEYWORDS:

• Land use change
• built-up area
• vegetation fragmentation
• landscape metrics
• GIS-based conditional analysis
• human-environment interactions

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph Oduro Appiah

Joseph Oduro Appiah is a sessional instructor at the School of Planning and Sustainability, University of Northern British Columbia. His research interests are in human-environment relationships, geographic information systems applications, resource management and livelihood outcomes, and geographies of health and healthcare.

Daniel Kpienbaareh

Daniel Kpienbaareh is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography and Environment at Western University. His research interests include the applications of geographic information systems and remote sensing for researching sustainable food systems, natural resource management, biodiversity conservation, and environmental health.

Janet Afua Abrafi Adomako

Janet Afua Abrafi Adomako is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography, Rutgers University. Her recent scholarly work focused mainly on peri-urban land uses and livelihood activities. Currently, Janet uses ethnographic research methods to study the intersection between gender and resource extraction.