Alex Owusu

• PhD Earth Systems and Geoinformation Science
• Lecturer at University of Ghana

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine effectively reduces HPV-related cancers. Understanding the primary target populations' perceptions of HPV vaccination is critical. We examined the perspectives of Ghanaian adolescent students on HPV vaccination. We conducted four focus group discussions among students from Junior High and Senior High Schools in th...

E-waste management remains a critical environmental and health issue, especially in developing regions like Ghana, where lax regulations and inadequate disposal methods exacerbate the risks associated with hazardous waste from discarded electronics. This research focuses on the e-waste management practices in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, asse...

Ghana was the first country globally to receive about 600,000 Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine doses from the WHO-backed Covax program in February 2021. Ghana’s initial plan was to vaccinate about two-thirds of its adult population by the end of October 2021. This necessitated the selection of vaccination centers across the country. This study analyzed v...

The Greater Accra Metropolitan Area of Ghana is experiencing rapid urbanisation at the expense of the environment, with substantial pollution compromising the area's resilience. This article examines the spatial dynamics of pollution from land use in the area and its health-related impacts. Drawing on a desk review of the literature and a transdisc...

The livelihood changes due to the COVID-19 policies in low-income and transitional economies serve as a lever for gauging the structural resilience of national food systems. Yet, few studies have addressed the cascading effects of the pandemic policies on the livelihood changes of farming system actors or modeled and provided coherent hypotheses ab...

A R T I C L E I N F O Keywords: Liveability Indicator-based assessment Accra metropolitan area Transdisciplinary approach A B S T R A C T Local knowledge of spatiotemporal patterns of liveability is vital for choosing where to live and where revital-isation efforts must concentrate. We employed transdisciplinary learning to identify 12 liveability...

Urban built-up environment Land cover change Vegetation cover Urban heat island Urbanization GAMA A B S T R A C T The unsustainable expansion of cities is generating urban heat islands (UHIs) by exchanging (trading) vegetation cover (green) for built impervious surfaces which is associated with heat-related health risks, globally. This phenomenon i...

Introduction: The growing generation of electrical and electronic waste poses a global threat to public health and the environment. These wastes, comprising 4.5-6% of total waste, contain toxic and hazardous substances of health and safety concerns in the African region including Ghana. Aim: To evaluate and identify the health and safety and enviro...

This work sought to review the awareness of e-waste dealers of the health and safety issues related to the processes associated with e-waste management in two selected sites in Greater Accra Metropolitan Area of Ghana. The review used a structured questionnaire, and focused group interviews to solicit for information from collectors, dissemblers, r...

The paper assessed flood risk profiles and coping strategies based on local people's perceptions and experiences in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area, a historically known area for its perennial flooding. The study surveyed 300 households across eight communities using questionnaires. We performed a descriptive analysis of res-idents' past experi...

In terms of conflict types and occurrences, there is a mesh of old, new, and concurrent conflicts which coexist and are affecting each other over space and time. Existing conflict studies are unable to fully explicate the space-time elements, hence this generates static and two-dimensional hotspots/coldspots. Using Africa as a case, this study used...

Since December 2019 when COVID-19 was detected, it took the world by surprise in terms of spread and morbidity/mortality. The high rate of spread and casualties recorded from COVID-19 called for research in all directions to find ways to contain and reverse the incidences. It is against this background that this paper sought to measure the associat...

The Eastern Coastline of Ghana is facing intense natural and anthropogenic disturbances, which pose a serious threat to the coastal community, ecosystem, and livelihoods. This study assessed the shoreline changes occurring along the Eastern Coast of Ghana stretching 149 km from Laloi Lagoon West of Prampram to Aflao, Ghana. The study utilizes satel...

Depending on planned behaviour theory most studies have assumed a direct effect between socio-demographics and biophilia attitudes on eco-volunteerism without considering prior eco-restoration challenges. Using the expectancy motivation theory, this study assessed the challenges eco-volunteers faced during an eco-restoration exercise within the Mun...

Objective: This study used the Geographic Intelligent Systems to examine the location of cervical cancer screening (CCS) facilities and their proximity to the residential location of Women Living with HIV (WLWH) and how they could influence WLWH CCS behaviors. Methods: We used deidentified existing data from Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) on...

Flooding is one of the most destructive climatic hazards which has affected agricultural activities in the world, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. This article investigated the impact of the recurrent annual floods on food production and how subsistent farmers have adapted to resultant food insecurity in the Sudan Savannah agroecological zone of Ghan...

Objective: We describe the use of integrated geospatial applications for the provision of access to timely and accurate data on samples, visualisation of Spatio-temporal patterns of cases and effective communication between field sample collectors, testing laboratories, Regional Health directors and Government Decision Makers. Design: This study...

Background In an era of the global pandemic and social media dominance, trying to control the narrative on COVID-19 has been a challenging task for most governments particularly with news about the disease on various social media platforms. There have even been instances where people have sent false information about the number of confirmed cases,...

This study reviewed the design and deployment of relational geodatabase on mobile GIS application, using collector for ArcGIS and survey 123 for ArcGIS platforms for COVID-19 contact tracing in Ghana during the lockdown. The study assessed whether cases spread by physical neighborhood contacts, defined by a 2km buffer of initial known 60 cases loca...

HPV vaccines are efficacious in preventing HPV related cancers. However, the vaccination uptake in Ghana is very low. Studies that utilize theoretical frameworks to identify contributory factors to HPV vaccination uptake in Ghana are understudied. We used multi-theory model (MTM) constructs to predict initiation and completion of HPV vaccination se...

Background: Adolescent health has assumed greater significance globally since adolescents bear a considerable proportion of the global disease and injury burden. Thus investing in their health can yield substantial benefit. Community surveys are useful tools for identifying the needs of adolescents and promoting their health. Objective: This study...

The main objective of the study was to identify high flood risk zones in AMA. The study also used questionnaires to assess local knowledge on what accounts for the high flood risk in their community. Spatial analysis techniques were used to model flood risk based on the following contributory factors; land cover, soil, drainage density, topography...

The essential role played by urban vegetation in making urban areas livable is often overlooked in many developing cities. This is the case of Ghana where its capital, Accra is developing at the expense of urban vegetation. This study was conducted at the metropolitan area of Accra to estimate how the extent of vegetation cover has changed in the p...

The unsustainable exploitation of natural resources combined with climate change and poor agroecosystem management practices has left the semi-arid areas of West Africa among one of the most degraded agroecosystems in the world. This condition affects the food crop production potential of the region. This paper examines farmers’ responses to climat...

Recent growth in mobile telephone and mobile-based information services in many developing countries provides opportunities to reduce costly and incomplete information dissemination in the agricultural sector and ensure efficient functioning of markets. But in order to successfully use mobile phones for the optimal development of agricultural marke...

Coastal towns along the coast of Africa are among the most vulnerable to climate change impacts such as flooding and sea level rise. Yet, because coastal conditions in many parts of the region are poorly understood, knowledge on which population groups are at the most risk is less known, particularly in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) of...

Coastal towns along the coast of Africa are among the most vulnerable to climate change impacts such as flooding and sea level rise. Yet, because coastal conditions in many parts of the region are poorly understood, knowledge on which population groups are at the most risk is less known, particularly in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) of...

This chapter explores which community-based technologies have the greatest potential for reducing poverty and vulnerability among many smallholder farmers in Ghana. To this end, the stochastic dominance test was applied to rank outcomes from the different technologies used by the smallholder farmers in the study area. To show the effect of the tech...

Millions of smallholder farmers in developing countries face incredible challenges marketing their farm produce. This article isolates lack of market information, collusion among middlemen, and thus price determination, and lack of transportation facilities as the main challenges facing smallholders in many developing regions. The findings also sho...

The two most important factors constantly impinging on the net movement of shorelines are erosion and accretion. This study analyzed the role of erosion and accretion in shoreline changes along the coast between Cape Coast and Sekondi in the central and western regions of Ghana, respectively. Aerial photographs, satellite images, and topographical...

Floods have become localised and unpredictable, hence the need for local level assessment to improve smallholder farmers' resilience and strengthen their capacity to adapt. This study investigated the degree of smallholder farmers' vulnerability to floods in Tolon District, Ghana. The study revealed that a farmer's location is the principal determi...

The savannah regions of Northern Ghana are characterized by smallholder farming systems and high levels of poverty. In recent times, communities in the regions have become more prone to climate and human-induced disasters in the form of annual floods and droughts. This study assessed the degree and magnitudes of vulnerability of four communities su...

The optimal management of water resources requires that the collected hydrogeological, meteorological, and spatial data be simulated and analyzed with appropriate models. In this study, a catchment-scale distributed hydrological modeling approach is applied to simulate water stress for the years 2000 and 2050 in a data scarce Pra Basin, Ghana. The...

The marketing and promotion of tourist sites through modern technologies such as geographic information system (GIS) and dynamic web technologies are slow in developing countries. This paper explores the potential of GIS in marketing tourism and examines how this can influence tourists' destination choice. The study mapped 41 tourist destination sp...

Faced with adversarial climatic and physical conditions and an inept socioeconomic development priorities, Northern Ghana remains one of the regions that are most vulnerable to climate-related shocks and disturbances in semi-arid Africa. Because of the effect of frequent floods, droughts, and bushfires, entire livelihoods in Ghana's predominantly s...

In recent years, land use (LU) and landscape structure in ecoregions around the world have been faced with enormous pressures, from rapid population growth to urban sprawl. A preliminary account of changes in land cover (LC) and landscape structure in the ecore-gions of Ghana is missing from the academic and re-search literature. The study therefor...

The urban landscape of Ghana, like most developing countries, is characterised by a mix of areas without water supply, and those with erratic and unreliable supply. These inadequacies are felt disproportionally in low-income communities, where their needs are often hidden in the aggregate statistics of the wider urban context. Using transect walks,...

Consistently studies have shown that proximity to health services has a bearing on infant and child mortality. They commonly cite a distance of 4km beyond which the risk of under five death risks increase by four-fold. Princess Marie Louise Children's Hospital is located at the heart of Accra Metropolitan Area serving a catchment area of about 35km...

To the street hawker, it is a means of making a living but to the managers of the metropolis, street hawking is a menace. These differences in perception have led to a game plan tied to spatio-temporal diurnal traffic regimes. While the city authorities plan may be to evict the street hawkers, the plan of the hawkers is to outwit the city authoriti...

This study presents a site suitability analysis for a central wastewater treatment plant (CWTP) using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology. The main objective was to identify locations suitable for the construction of a CWTPs in the Accra metropolitan area to solve the problems relating to the general absence and malfunctioning of wastew...

Remote sensing (RS) techniques based on multispectral satellite-acquired data have demonstrated an unequalled potential to detect, quantify, monitor, and map land degradation. However, RS data alone do not provide information on how land degradation affects the socio-political aspects and the economy of the population living in the affected regions...

The paper examines causative factors of land cover change of the Asunafo forest in Ghana. And, investigate whether the replacement of dense forest by crop land and other opportunistic covers has resulted in land degradation. It is suggested that settlement expansion, smallholder farming, timber extraction, wood carving, bushfires and harvesting of...

Detecting and quantifying the extent of desertification and its impact in the semi-arid Sub-Saharan Africa: A case study of the Upper East Region, Ghana

Desertification poses a serious threat to agriculture and the entire livelihood system of the Upper East Region, Ghana. Attempts at combating the threat of desertification in the region have little success story to tell posterity. Questions arising were thus stated; what is the evidence of desertification? How are local people coping? How sustainab...