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RESEARCH ARTICLE: Remote Sensing and GIS Based Assessment of Land Degradation and Implications for Ghana’s Ecological Zones

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2015

F. Mensah ,
S.K. Adanu  and
D.K. Adanu
F. Mensah
Affiliation:
Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Services, PMB L 17, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana.
S.K. Adanu*
Affiliation:
Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Services, PMB L 17, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana.
D.K. Adanu
Affiliation:
Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, P.O. Box AH 50, Achimota, Accra.
*
Address correspondence to: S.K. Adanu, Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Services; Phone: 00233 24622 8503; (e-mail) sadanu@hotmail.com
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Abstract

Land degradation and desertification have become complex environmental, social, and economic concerns in Ghana owing to decline in agricultural productivity, loss of biodiversity, and forced out-migration from degraded lands to cities in search of jobs or to rural forested communities for farming, resulting in further deforestation. In an attempt to address these complex land degradation and desertification problems, particularly in the northern areas of Ghana, land degradation was assessed in six major ecological zones of Sudan savanna, Guinea savanna, forest transition, moist semi-deciduous forest, evergreen forest, and coastal savanna. The objectives of the assessment were to: (a) analyze current satellite images to document land degradation, (b) model trends of land degradation, and (c) create a desertification hazard map for Ghana. Land degradation was modeled by using ArcGIS 9.3; satellite image analysis was conducted by using ERDAS Imagine software. Land degradation indicator data layers were soil, vegetation, climate, and land management data. The Modified Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use Model was adapted to model desertification and land degradation, which resulted in the production of a land degradation risk map for Ghana. In addition to the modeling, satellite image based land cover classification results from 2000 to 2008 showed evidence of approximately 880.006 sq km of land degradation in Ghana.

Environmental Practice 17: 3–15 (2015)

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Environmental Practice , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 3 - 15
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© National Association of Environmental Professionals 2015 

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