Justice Nana Inkoom

Migration in West Africa is driven by socio-economic, political, environmental and climatic factors. In Ghana, north-south migration has been linked to rainfall variability and soil degradation. This study uses Ghana’s 2021 census microdata to measure internal migration between districts and explores its drivers using remote sensing. The migration...

Urbanization is a key driver of coastal habitats degradation in West Africa. Habitat restoration is strongly advocated to mitigate urbanization impacts in West African coastal areas. However, knowledge on the application of scenarios to envision land use patterns and ecosystem services (ES) supply in this region is still lacking in scientific liter...

Cities in West Africa have been growing rapidly due to natural population growth and rural-urban migration. This dynamic process has several impacts, yet temporarily and spatially detailed information is often unavailable. Multi-sensor satellite data allow monitoring physical aspects of migration processes. In this paper, we integrate cost-free dat...

This perspective paper highlights the potentials, limitations, and combinations of openly available Earth observation (EO) data and big data in the context of environmental research in urban areas. The aim is to build the resilience of informal settlements to climate change impacts. In particular, it highlights the types, categories, spatial and te...

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 l...

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) in Southwestern Ghana evoke a strong sense of attachment of local land users to the landscape. Hence, their supply is necessary for a balanced socio-ecological system. This study explored the potential supply of cultural ecosystem services (science/education, spiritual, tourism, health and recreation benefits) unde...

In this communication article, we share our scenario ideas at the request of the journal editor. These are (1) a scenario for building sustainable suburbs; (2) a counterfactual scenario for coping with the super wicked COVID problem; (3) envisioning alternative futures of cultural ecosystem services supplies in Southwestern Ghana; and (4) a path to...

The study aimed at identifying a core set of landscape metrics for assessing potential ecosystem services provision and for application in spatial planning in the highly anthropogenically dominated landscapes of the Sudanian Savannah region. Twenty-two metrics for ES services assessment and spatial planning selected from literature were calculated....

The Sudanian savanna landscapes of West Africa are amongst the world's most vulnerable areas to climate change impacts. Inappropriate land use and agriculture management practices continuously impede the capacity of agricultural landscapes to provide ecosystem services (ES). Given the absence of practical assessment techniques to evaluate the lands...

The integration of geographic information systems (GIS) and agent-based models (ABMs) can be an efficient tool to improve spatial planning practices. This paper utilizes GIS and ABM approaches to simulate spatial growth patterns of settlement structures in Shama. A preliminary household survey on residential location decision-making choice served a...

Despite its popular adoption and use, neutral landscape models have been unexplored in data scarce areas of the Sudanian Savanna region where its application could serve as inputs for spatial ecosystem service assessment. Thus, the need for an easy to use tool to produce landscape patterns similar to real landscapes in this area is imminent. In thi...

Despite the benefit accrued from integrating ecosystem service (ES) concepts into modern land use planning (LUP) practices, approaches to mainstream the concept in West Africa remains a challenge. The objective of this paper is to develop a framework for integrating ESs into the LUP. We achieved this by using content analysis to search for ES keywo...

Population growth, economic development, and rural migration to urban areas have caused rapid expansion of urban centres in Ghana. One reason is that spatial planning and in particular urban planning face different social, economic and political challenges which hinder a structured and planned urban development, therefore causing urban sprawl. We h...