Understanding land-use/cover change process for land and environmental resources use management policy in Ghana

Accurate information on land-use/cover change is a critical input for natural resource use management policy decisions. In Ghana, however, land-use/cover change is premised on the assumption that there has been a historically simple, linear, and uniform degradation of vegetation across all landscapes. The Kintampo and neighboring districts have become a subject of intense debate as to the real nature of prevailing land cover changes .It is commonly assumed that there is ubiquitously progressive irreversible woody vegetation loss across the area. The paper reports on the process and amount of land-use/cover changes that have prevailed in specific localities across the area within a 10-year period. It is hoped this will improve understanding and management of land-use/cover change in Ghana. Remote sensing and Geographic information systems technologies were used for the investigation. A multi-site satellite imagery approach was adopted to ensure that inductive inferences could be made. The outcome of the study indicated that, in space and time, there have been significant land-use/cover changes. Variability in change was a constant, rather than occasional feature across these human dominated landscapes. The conversion and transformation processes indicated that the traditional land-use strategies are self-sustaining. Any effective land-use/cover management strategy should be built upon the existing traditional farming system knowledge and practices. © 2007 Springer Science + Business Media B.V.