Implications of Spatio-Temporal Land Use/Cover Changes for Ecosystem Services Supply in the Coastal Landscapes of Southwestern Ghana, West Africa

Stephen Kankam (), Adams Osman, Justice Nana Inkoom and Christine Fürst
Additional contact information
Stephen Kankam: Department of Sustainable Landscape Development, Institute for Geosciences and Geography, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Von-Seckendorff-Platz 4, 06120 Halle, Germany
Adams Osman: Department of Geography Education, University of Education, Winneba P.O. Box 25, Ghana
Justice Nana Inkoom: Department of Sustainable Landscape Development, Institute for Geosciences and Geography, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Von-Seckendorff-Platz 4, 06120 Halle, Germany
Christine Fürst: Department of Sustainable Landscape Development, Institute for Geosciences and Geography, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Von-Seckendorff-Platz 4, 06120 Halle, Germany

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-24

Abstract: Land use/land cover change (LULCC) is an important driver of ecosystem changes in coastal areas. Despite being pervasive in coastal Ghana, LULCC has not been investigated to understand its effects on the potential for coastal landscapes to supply ecosystem services (ES). In this study, the impacts of LULCC on the potential supply of ES by coastal landscapes in Southwestern Ghana was assessed for the years 2008 and 2018 by using remote sensing and benefit transfer approaches. Based on available data, relevant provisioning and regulating ES were selected for the assessment while indicators to aid the quantification of the ES were obtained from literature. Supervised classification methods and maximum likelihood algorithms were used to prepare land use/land cover (LULC) maps and the derived LULC categories were assigned according to the descriptions of the Land Cover Classification System (LCCS). Potential supply of provisioning (food, fuelwood) and regulating (carbon storage) services was quantified and the spatial and temporal distributions of these ES illustrated using maps. The results show variations in food and fuelwood supply and carbon storage potentials over the study period and across different locations on the landscape. Potentials for fuelwood supply and carbon storage in mangrove forests indicated declining trends between 2008 and 2018. On the other hand, food-crop supply and carbon storage potential in rubber plantations depicted increasing patterns over the same period. Population, slope and elevation exhibited strong effects on LULC conversions to food crop and rubber plantations whereas these factors were less important determinants of mangrove forest conversions. The findings of the study have implications for identifying and addressing tradeoffs between land uses for agriculture, industrial development and conservation of critical coastal ES within the context of rapid land system transformations in the study region.

Keywords: ecosystem services; land use/land cover change; benefit transfer; coastal landscapes; quantification; spatio-temporal; West Africa; Ghana (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/9/1408/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/9/1408/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:9:p:1408-:d:899145

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().