Accra Ghana: A City Vulnerable to Flooding and Drought-Induced Migration

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David R. Rain is Associate Professor of Geography and International Affairs and Director of the
Environmental Studies program at The George Washington University.
Ryan Engstrom is Assistant Professor of Geography, Director of the Spatial Analysis Lab, and Co-
Director for the Center for Urban Environmental Research at The George Washington University.
Christianna Ludlow is a physical geographer working in remote sensing and international
development issues. She received her Master’s degree in Geography from The George Washington
University in May 2009.
Sarah Antos is a United Nations analyst working at the World Health Organization’s Vulnerability
and Risk Analysis Mapping Unit in Tunisia. Comments can be sent to the authors at drain@gwu.edu
Accra Ghana: A City Vulnerable to
Flooding and Drought-Induced Migration
David Rain, Ryan Engstrom, Christianna Ludlow and
Sarah Antos
Case study prepared for
Cities and Climate Change:
Global Report on Human Settlements 2011
Available from http://www.unhabitat.org/grhs/2011

Disclaimer: This case study is published as submitted by the consultant, and it has not been edited by
the United Nations.
The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the
expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning
the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning delimitation of
its frontiers or boundaries, or regarding its economic system or degree of development.
The analysis, conclusions and recommendations of the report do not necessarily reflect the views of
the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, the Governing Council of the United Nations
Human Settlements Programme or its Member States.

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Accra Ghana: A City Vulnerable to Flooding and Drought-Induced
Migration
David Rain, Ryan Engstrom, Christianna Ludlow and Sarah Antos
1. Introduction
This case study will address some expected climate-related impacts on Accra, Ghana, a
rapidly developing coastal city with a population of about 3 million people on the Gulf of
Guinea in West Africa. For this study, urban climate change impacts will be considered in the
context of historical urban growth patterns in Accra, the influence of longstanding migration
patterns from the interior and other coastal locations, and the threat of flooding from streams
and other urban waterways. All of these factors will play a role in estimating Accra’s
resilience in the face of climate change, although the specific contribution of each factor is in
fact unknown. Considering future impacts necessarily involves consideration of population-
environment interactions as they currently exist. In Accra, there are an estimated 172,000
residents at risk of a 10-year flood. Of that total, 33,000 residents are located in slums or
substandard housing units.
An important impact of climate change illustrated by this case study is migration, both
international and domestic, occurring over a variety of time scales. The economic and social
impacts of migration are not often described in the detail that physical impacts of climate
change are. Examining the impact of migration in Accra provides an important perspective
on those challenges that occur in the developing world.
2. Background: Climate Change and Africa
For coastal cities in Africa south of the Sahara, impacts from climate change are understood
to include sea-level rise which leads to the inundation of lagoons and seaside wetlands,
increased storm surges and consequent flooding, changes in disease vectors, and drought.
Many of these have implications that go far beyond the coast and sometimes threaten the
fragile national economies.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Fourth Assessment Report, in its
summary projections of climate change impacts for Africa, deemed the continent one of the
most vulnerable in the world1. This situation is aggravated by the interaction of multiple
stresses built on existing development challenges such as poverty, governance failures,
limited access to capital, complex humanitarian crises, livelihood fragility, and deteriorating
food security—all reflecting sobering development indicators. Among the impacts is the
threat to agricultural production posed by increased inter-annual variability of precipitation,
which could drive increases in migration out of lower production areas to urban areas. The
IPCC report did not look specifically at urban impacts per se, but it did focus on coastal
population settlements.
1 Boko et al, 2007

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A sensitivity analysis on Low Elevation Coastal Zones (LECZs) around the world found that
globally, one in ten persons lives in a coastal area ten meters or less above sea level2. Africa’s
LECZ contains a land area of 191,000 square kilometers and a population of 56 million,
which represent one and seven percent of the overall totals for Africa respectively. This is
less than for Asia with 13 percent of its population in LECZs, and especially specific
countries such as Vietnam with 55 percent living in LECZs.
Impacts on coastal areas in Africa are difficult to assess in detail because most countries’
population data are not disaggregated below the national level, and population thresholds for
urban areas vary greatly3,4,5. There are about 20 African coastal cities with populations
greater than one million, and about 30 with populations of 500,000 and above6. A World
Bank analysis of coastal populations for West Africa estimated that almost 40 percent of the
population lives in coastal cities7.
Africa is expected to pass the threshold of being a majority of urban dwellers by 20308.
African cities can be characterized by rampant and unsustainable growth, and overwhelmed
physical capacity to deal with their current population. African urban growth rates have been
estimated to be at around five percent from 1968-20009. Ghana’s coastal districts, which
make up about 6.5 percent of total land area, are home to about 25 percent of the nation’s
population10. A World Bank report from 2009 estimated that about 400 square kilometers and
137,000 people in Ghana will be at direct risk from storm surges and coastal inundation11.
These numbers may seem low and perhaps they are, but one should bear in mind that
compared with other world regions such as East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, Africa’s
population distribution is proportionately less coastal, and more precisely less at sea-level.
This is partly a function of the geology of the continent, which can be characterized as a
plateau composed largely of Precambrian rocks, without the extensive mechanical weathering
and consequent coastal plains found on other continents. As a result Africa is a landmass
with few natural harbors and a relatively straight coastline12,13 with substantial coastal
populations living several meters or more above sea level. For this reason the continent
overall appears less vulnerable to the specific physical impacts of sea level rise than other
world regions.
However, a more significant impact of climate change for Africa is expected to be drought,
particularly in agriculturally dependent areas in the continent’s interior. An estimated 30
percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa lives in dry areas. Agriculture throughout the
African continent, and particularly in West Africa, is heavily dependent on the seasonal
characteristics of rainfall. In the Sudano-Sahelian zone, the timing of the rainy seasons is
determined by the poleward movement of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) during
2 McGranahan et al, 2007
3 Bocquier, 2003
4 United Nations, 2007
5 Montgomery, 2008
6 UN Human Settlements Program, 2008
7 Hewawasan, 2002
8 Montgomery, 2008
9 Tiffen, 2003
10 Hewawasan, 2002
11 Dasgupta et al, 2009
12 Mountjoy and Embleton, 1967
13 Cole and de Blij, 2006

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the high sun season. Climate researchers have reported shifts and growing intra-seasonal
variability in the ITCZ over West Africa14,15,16.
In the past few decades, northwestern Africa experienced large rainfall variations, for
example the dramatic Sahelian droughts of the 1970s and 1980s where mean annual rainfall
dropped by 30 percent17. Paleo-limnological evidence suggests much higher amplitudes of
rainfall variation in the last few thousand years18. West Africa continues to experience high
inter-annual variability in precipitation. Mahé and Olivry (1999) found that the runoff deficit
was twice the volume of the rainfall deficit in the Senegal and Upper Niger Areas in recent
decades. Runoff in the Volta basin in Ghana is similarly sensitive to precipitation19. Forty
years of rainfall and runoff records from southwestern Ghana and the Volta basin show a
significant reduction in rainfall and runoff in the region linked to the influence of climate
change20. However, two predominant schools of thought on the contemporary trends in
Sahelian rainfall exist21. One school believes the Sahelian drought continued through the end
of the 20th century22, while the other contends the drought terminated in the 1990s23. If
climate change increases the variability in rainfall or causes drought, this will certainly have
impact on the city of Accra.
Food security in this region is heavily influenced by the seasonal characteristics of rainfall.
With destabilized agricultural systems and continued dependency on food aid exacerbated by
drought, both cities and rural areas in the interior will be affected through migration, both
permanent and temporary (i.e., circular mobility). Quarcoopome (1993) noted the recurring
threat of famine or crop failure in a list of the causes of migration of special importance in
various parts of Africa south of the Sahara. This circular mobility is an age-old practice in
this part of the world, but its prevalence could rise to unprecedented levels and therefore
eclipse any potential mitigating factor arising from the continent’s geology24.
Of course the potential impacts of climate change are far more complicated than this simple
scenario. People choose to migrate from rural to urban areas for many reasons25.
Furthermore, Ghana and its neighboring countries span five vegetation zones north to south:
Sudan savannah, Sahel savannah, Northern Guinea savannah, derived savannah, dry semi-
evergreen rainforests, and moist evergreen rainforests26. Staple food crops of West African
include maize, sorghum, rice and millet27, all of which have different climatic and edaphic
requirements. The effect that climate change may have on these vegetation zones, staple
crops and migration flows is uncertain.
14 Matthews 2002, 2003
15 Sultan et al., 2000
16 Sultan et al., 2005
17 Lezine, Duplessy and Cazet, 2005; Hulme, 1992
18 Lezine, Duplessy and Cazet, 2005
19 Andreini et al., 2000
20 Oppku-Ankomah and Amisigo, 1998
21 Oguntunde et al., 2006
22 L’Hóte et al., 2002
23 Ozer et al., 2003
24 Rain, 1999
25 Quarcoopome, 1993
26 Keay, 1959; Adejuwon, 2005
27 Murdock, 1960; Adejuwon, 2005

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Research on environmental refugees – people who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in
their homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification and/or other environmental
problems and therefore migrate – suggests migration caused by climate change is a likely
scenario. Oxford researcher Norman Myers28 estimated that 10 million people fled recent
droughts in the Sahel by 1995.
Some environmental refugee research is based on observation – the European Commission-
funded programme called Environmental Change and Forced Migration Scenarios (EACH-
FOR) for example – and some is based on speculation. EACH-FOR found evidence of
drought induced migration in Ghana, Niger, Western Sahara, Senegal and many more
countries throughout the world29. Preliminary EACH-FOR assessments in Ghana indicate
that environmentally linked migrations occur internally, that is within national borders. In
northwestern Ghana, livelihoods are primarily based on small-scale rain-fed agricultural
subsistence, including the growth of crops like millet, sorghum, maize, yams, groundnuts,
rice, cassava and beans. Migration seems to be the traditional risk management strategy, with
30.8 percent of people born in northwestern Ghana now living elsewhere. Many northern
Ghanaians relocated to Ghana’s middle regions because of the combination of poor agro-
ecological conditions at home and easy access to fertile lands in the more humid south.
Migrants to Accra also originate from nearby countries. Current migrants are from Nigeria,
Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso and end up in specific neighborhoods in Accra as will be
discussed later. Their vulnerability to climate change will be tied to a variety of social and
economic processes already occurring in the region.
Impacts of climate change worldwide are already being felt in higher rates of migration and
population displacement30. These are caused by the breakdown of ecosystem-dependent
livelihoods such as rainfed agriculture. Globally, the numbers of people uprooted by
environmental change are projected to reach 25.5 million by the year 2010, and reach several
hundred million by 2050. Coastal cities in Africa may be flooded with drought-driven
environmental refugees, and this may pose a potentially bigger problem for the cities than
rising sea water.
For Accra, the specific impacts of drought and migration are difficult to estimate with much
precision. Yet, we must assume with historical and geographic continuity that patterns
evidenced in the human landscape are the results of long-term drivers. The main impacts
appear to be drought, which focuses migration flows on cities, and flooding caused by
cyclonic storms.
While the effects of climate variability are usually conceived in terms of rural life, certainly
agriculture-dependent labor sectors within the city will be affected. Food security challenges
caused by climate change will affect urban as well as rural dwellers. Governance will be
challenged as well, though in ways that again are difficult to model with any precision.
28 Myers, 2001
29 Environmental Change and Forced Migration (EACH-FOR), 2008
30 Warner, 2009

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3. Accra case study: the co-evolution of Accra’s spatial extent and climate
variability
Accra is a coastal city that has been the capital of Ghana since 1877 with an estimated
population of about 3 million. Its patterns of population distribution, livelihoods, and its
dominant role within the national economy of Ghana make it a good representative case study
for coastal West Africa. This case study will consider the historical context for continued
urban growth and assess potential future impacts of climate change on existing settlement
patterns. As the potential impacts are difficult to gauge without historical context, we posit
that only a site-specific study can reveal the patterns to assess future scenarios.
Since its early history, Accra has grown rapidly and in concert with national and regional
political-economic trends. Arguably it was the cocoa trade in the 19th Century that brought
relative prosperity and certainly affected patterns of commercial land use within the city and
the emerging urban system31. During the 1870s, Accra occupied a land area of less than 10
square kilometers32. After 1877, Accra hosted the British colonial headquarters which had
been relocated from Cape Coast. Along with colonial administration came commerce, with
African merchants occupying a growing “Native Town” to the north of the market and to the
west of Ridge area which hosted the British. The higher elevation land of the Ridge was kept
exclusively European through a rigid policy of residential segregation. The expatriate areas
of the Ridge and Cantonments were separated from the rest of the city through a cordon
sanitaire of vacant land. The native population, and particularly the Ga people who are
considered the original inhabitants of Accra, lived in crowded, disorganized areas near the
market and the sea coast—i.e., on areas of lower elevation and higher flood risk, a pattern that
continues to today.
Into the 1920s the townscape of Accra clearly displayed the impact of the cocoa trade33, also
benefiting from trade in palm kernels and oil after the end of World War I. The indigenous
Ga areas continued to experience crowding. The neighborhood of Korle Bu was founded
between 1919 and 192734. The big downtown market, Makola, was constructed in 1924. By
1927, areas such as Tudu, Adabraka, Korle Gonno, Mamprobi, Sabon Zongo, and extensions
to Christiansborg and Victoriaborg were founded. Sabon Zongo was founded in the 1920s as
a Muslim enclave and settled by migrants from the Sahel and other coastal countries with
Muslim populations. Sabon Zongo has been the subject of previous studies, examining the
communities’ infrastructure, market, and centripetal socio-spatial structures as residents adapt
to a mixing of cultures35.
After displacements caused by an earthquake in 1939, new neighborhoods were built in
Christiansborg, South Labadi, Kaneshi, Sabon Zongo, and Abossey Okai. After World War
II, the Muslim enclave of Nima in central Accra began to be occupied, along with the elite
Airport Residential Area. By 1954, new neighborhoods including Kokomlemle, Tesano,
31 Brand, 1972a
32 Grant and Yankson, 2003
33 Grant and Yankson, 2003
34 Acquah, 1958
35 Pellow, 2000

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Achimota, and Kanda Village were built. As the city grew through colonial times (see Figure
1 derived from Harvey and Brand 1974, with the gray line labeled “contemporary urban
extent” indicating the spatial reach of the city as estimated from Landsat imgery in 2000), the
neighborhoods continued to display the extremes in living conditions, from the chaotic and
unsanitary slums such as Chorkor and Nungua on the coast, to the emergent middle class
areas such as Adabraka and Kaneshi, and exclusive expatriate European and elite African
enclaves.
Figure 1: The Expanding Spatial Extent of Ghana from 1900 to 1969.
Source: Harvey et al (1974). This series of maps depicts growth in built-up area for Accra. The gray
outline labeled ‘contemporary urban extent’ is derived from Landsat imagery to show the maximum
boundary of physical growth in the year 2000.
By the time of Ghana’s first census as an independent country in 1960, Accra had a
population of 388,00036. Its founding leader, Kwame Nkrumah, sought to reconfigure the
colonial urban form based on prevailing notions of modernity and industrialization, and each
subsequent administration had its own way of influencing the architecture and planning of the
city37. The British master city plan conceived during World War II created designated
36 Brand, 1972b
37 Hess, 2000

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separate spaces for inner urban squatter settlements, commercial areas, and a new middle
class. But this plan was pushed aside by Nkrumah in favor of a more all encompassing plan
drawn up by international architects to encourage national rather than tribal identity.
Evidence of this attempt is most apparent along Accra’s water front where a large community
center was built near a symbolic black star square. The beach was no longer reserved for only
large European houses, but was open for the entire nation. Streets were also renamed and
occasionally rerouted through once inaccessible poor neighborhoods.
Despite attempts to unify the built landscape of the city, a principal components analysis of
data from 268 enumeration areas from the 1960 census discovered striking patterns of
religious and ethnic segregation in Accra, principally among three groups38. The native Ga
people were concentrated in the Jamestown-Usshertown core and in other settlements along
the coast. The foreign-born and largely Muslim population from the north was primarily
concentrated in neighborhoods such as the commercial core, Sabon Zongo, and Nima, while
the non-African population are concentrated in the Ridge area, Cantonments, and the Airport
Residential Area.
Researchers using census and survey data to examine what they termed the ‘uncontrolled
expansion’ of Accra during the 1960s found that central Accra attracted a small amount of
immigration39. More importantly the great majority of newcomers were settling in the
periphery where rent was less expensive and construction of housing uncontrolled.
The housing situation in Accra as examined between 1950 and 1990 worsened40. In their
macro-economic development, the rulers of newly independent Ghana continued urban-biased
policies which favored Accra over other cities and regions in Ghana, which enhanced the
city’s ability to “pull” migrants from other parts of the country and the greater region. By
1984, the year after a serious drought in Ghana, the city’s population had reached 970,000, an
estimate which is widely believed to be an undercount. Since the late 1980s, the city has
experienced an average annual growth rate of 4.3 percent as compared with a national rate of
2.8 percent. This has put tremendous pressure on housing stock and infrastructure as the city
filled with new residents.
More than 50 years after Independence, these contrasting patterns between core and outlying
areas persist41, although there is considerably more mixing especially in the new suburbs that
ring the city, some extending many kilometers to the north and east. This has implications for
predicting migration flows – and subsequent vulnerability to climate change – in the future.
A survey conducted in 199742 in the deteriorating neighborhoods of Ussher Town, James
Town and other indigenous neighborhoods found a high level of dissatisfaction among urban
residents, citing lack of privacy, lack of adequate facilities and facility-sharing, poor
sanitation, and harassment from landlords as their basic concerns. It found that that 72-75
percent of all households in these areas shared toilet, kitchen and bathroom facilities with
their landlords and/or co-tenants. In the neighborhood of Nima/Maamobi, the average
number of persons per house was found to be 9.3 with each household containing 5.3 persons.
Residential mobility in these areas was very low, with 67 percent of all renting households
living on the same premises for seven years or more.
38 Brand, 1972b
39 Harvey and Brand, 1974
40 Konadu-Agyemang, 2001
41 Agyei-Mensah and Owusu, 2009
42 Konadu-Agyemang, 2001

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A study completed in 2000 provides empirical evidence of the link between structural
adjustment, economic liberalization, and the urban form of Accra, characterizing Accra’s
growth as residential sprawl with unicentric tendencies, rather than either a deconcentration of
urban functions or a fusion of urban and rural functions43. For Accra, globalization and
economic growth have helped contribute to the city’s expansion, as depicted in Figure 1, in all
directions but particularly to the north and east of the city.
Urban sprawl and traffic choked streets represent modern day Accra. An examination of
Accra’s physical development from the strategic standpoint of spatial planning at both the
national and local levels concluded that the fragmented pattern of Accra is the result of a
planning system that is unable to sustain development44. In particular, short-sighted planning
is to blame for urban sprawl in Accra.
Neighborhoods to the extreme north of Accra’s central core such as Madina, Kasuwa, and
New Fadama, are satellites from the inner city neighborhoods of Nima, Sabon Zongo, and
Tudu. Formed through an intra-urban process of chain migration, these new satellite areas
serve as gateway neighborhoods for both recent migrants from northern Ghana, Nigeria,
Niger, Mali, and Burkina as well as spillovers from the core areas45. Residents are attracted to
these farther out satellite areas because they are able to afford flats in relatively clean and safe
areas. Continued urban expansion overruns rural and agricultural land surrounding the city
and without regard to infrastructure or planning. This leads to an over-exploitation of natural
resources to satisfy various demands46.
The current urban area extent measured using Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite images for
the year 2002 using a texture-based classification method, and compared to similar
information for the years 1985 and 1991, indicates that urbanization of the fringe areas of
Accra is occurring at a quickening pace47. This expansion in the fringe areas is occurring in a
largely unplanned and uncontrolled manner, creating sprawling low-density development that
is uneconomic in terms of land use48. As the city grows by filling in areas between older
neighborhoods that lack roads, sewers and other infrastructure, problems are created that may
prove costly to resolve down the road49. Currently, people face long, traffic filled commutes
on poorly maintained roads. This situation is not currently sustainable, and promises to be
less so if migration rates increase in the future.
This summary of Accra’s settlement history sets the context for assessing contemporary
vulnerability to climate change. One must ask what impact a city’s particular socio-spatial
conditions have on residents’ ability to withstand periodic climatic shocks including both
flooding and drought. With a very long residency rate, dwellers in the oldest neighborhoods
of Accra could be thought to possess social capital related to disaster preparedness that awaits
additional exploration. In other, more recently settled areas of the city, urban residents may
lack the roots but compensate by having a fuller stock of migration capital, having arrived in
Accra from one or more other places, either other cities or rural areas.
43 Yehboah, 2000
44 Larbi, 1996
45 Agyei-Mensah and Owusu, 2009
46 Kufogbe, 1996
47 Yankson, et al., 2004
48 Moller-Jensen et al., 2005
49 Moller-Jensen et al., 2005

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Vulnerability can thus be thought of as determined by a mixture of biophysical factors related
to the actual location in the city, as well as socio-demographic factors50 such as dependency
ratios and access to transportation. Those in poorer and more marginal lands will be more at a
risk of flooding, and their plight will not be helped by their relative lack of social capital.
3.1. Locating neighborhoods vulnerable to climate change: slum
index, elevation, and greenness in Accra
It is possible to locate neighborhoods in Accra which may be more vulnerable to the
anticipated impacts of climate change such as sea level rise and flooding. Figure 2 below
shows three maps of Accra divided into enumeration areas (census tracts) classified according
to UN-Habitat slum index, mean elevation and a measure of greenness. All three maps are
part of ongoing research in Accra that is funded by the US National Institutes for Health and
led by Principal Investigator Professor John Weeks.
The slum index is the traditional one used by UN-Habitat and is composed of the following
elements: inadequate access to safe water; inadequate access to sanitation and other
infrastructure; poor structural quality of housing; overcrowding; and insecure residential
status. Note the areas with higher slum indexes depicted by the yellow and lighter brown
colors. Predictably the clusters of enumeration areas displaying the highest values for slum
index were located in the old Ga neighborhoods on the coast, in the neighborhoods of Nima,
Maamobi, and Sabon Zongo, and in some of the newer satellite areas on the outskirts of town.
The elevation data depicted in the next map derive from the Shuttle Radar Topography
Mission, with a resolution of 90 meters. Enumeration areas with mean elevations depicted in
yellow are closest to sea level, meaning they will be the first to feel the effects of a sea level
rise. Those enumeration areas falling in the one to nine meter elevation class are primarily
close to streams and nearer the coast, which make them more susceptible to flooding. These
enumeration areas display a variety of slum conditions.
The third map depicts a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) or greenness index
for Accra. Preliminary work by Weeks51 suggests that the amount of vegetation is associated
with tree-planting efforts begun in British colonial times in Accra. Creating impervious
surface through cementing outdoor living areas is a locally understood strategy to reduce
flooding; however it does so by passing the problem on to those downstream. The subject of
flooding will be covered next.
50 Azar and Rain, 2007
51 Weeks et al., 2007

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Figure 2: Mean Slum Index, Elevation, and Vegetation Index by Enumeration Area,
for Accra
Source: The three maps depict the slum index, elevation, and Normalized Difference Vegetation
Index (NDVI) or greenness index for Accra. All three maps are part of ongoing research in Accra
that is funded by the US National Institutes for Health, Grant # R01HD054906-01, “Health,
Poverty and Place: Modeling Inequalities in Accra Using RS and GIS; Principal Investigator:
John R. Weeks.

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3.2. Flood modeling analysis and estimated populations at risk from
flooding
Flooding is a serious environmental issue affecting Accra, and with rising sea levels it may
become an even greater problem. It is expected that an increased level of cyclonic storms to a
great extent and storm surges to a lesser extent will be associated with future climate change
and may increase flood occurrence in spatial patterns similar to those of the present. Floods
currently are usually of short duration and are caused by heavy rains that generally occur in
June and July. Significant flood events have been recorded in 1973, 1986, 1995, 1999, 2001,
and 2002. Along with property damage, the ability of flood waters to spread pollution from
solid waste, industrial waste, and sewage is an important health and environmental issue
particularly in poor areas.
The Odaw River is the major stream draining central Accra, with its outlet into the Korle
Lagoon, while smaller streams lead into lagoons to the east and west of central Accra. Much
of the Odaw catchment area is built up and many of the streams are channelized. Rainfall in
Accra occurs in the form of intensive storm events, which cause local flooding52,53,54.
Several factors contribute to the flooding problem. First, the massive growth of the city of
Accra55 has increased the extent of impervious surfaces. Impervious surfaces are materials
that prevent infiltration of water into the soils, and include roads, rooftops, sidewalks, bedrock
outcrops and compacted soil56. This leads to increased discharge that overloads drainage
channels. Associated with this rapid urbanization are flaws in the drainage network such as
undersized, unconnected or improperly channeled drains. In addition, poor development
controls, limited garbage collection and disposal block channels and sewers, which slow
drainage through the city57. In addition, field reconnaissance has indicated substantial
uncontrolled development occurs in low-lying or unsafe areas – often immediately adjacent to
and even directly over drainage channels.
Satellite data and GIS were used to develop a simple flood model to understand the impacts
and possible property damage and pollutant spread in Accra. Modeled water flow volumes
were compared with estimates of channel capacities to predict which drainage channels would
overflow given a certain amount of rainfall. Figure 3 below illustrates the estimated amounts
of overflow for each channel resulting from a 10-year 24-hour rainfall total (167.6 mm). This
water would overflow the stream channels and affect the immediately adjacent areas.
The populations at risk to flooding in Accra were identified using a simple assumption that
only the census enumeration areas (EAs) from the 2000 Ghana Census nearest the stream
channels would be affected. The total population of EAs that border the Odaw and its
tributary streams is roughly 172,000 people based on the 2000 census. This is a very
conservative estimate of the number of people impacted due to current data limitations. In
addition, the map displays the slum areas in Accra with the darker grays represent a higher
slum index. Approximately 33,000 people live in EAs with the highest slum index. This
indicates that a large portion of the population that would be impacted by flooding tend to be
52 BGR-GSD, 2006
53 Masiyandima et al., 2003
54 Hayward and Oguntoyinbo, 1987
55 Afeku, 2005
56 Arnold et al., 1996
57 Afeku, 2005

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the slum dwellers who are often the poorest. With the infilling that may occur as new
migrants move into the city core, there is a potential for many more people to be exposed to
floods.
3.3. Water supply impacts of climate change in Accra
The municipal water supply is mainly from Weija reservoir to the west of Accra, although
some of the supply comes from the Akosombo Dam (Lake Volta) to the northeast. Both
water sources are surface water and rely on rainfall for replenishment. Currently large
portions of Accra do not have access to piped water in their dwellings. Much of Accra’s
population purchases drinking water in small plastic bags, which are sold on the street corners
for a few cents. This water is tested by a government agency, and results are used in the
licensing procedures for water companies, ensuring a relatively consistent quality.
In addition to affecting surface water, climate change in Accra may deteriorate groundwater
resources due to saltwater intrusion. The level of salt in the ground water has been mapped
Figure 3: Slum Areas in Accra at Risk from Channel Overflow
Source: Ludlow C (2009)

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by the Ghana-Germany Technical Cooperation Project58. According to its report, many areas
around Accra already show saltwater intrusion along with surface contamination in some
areas because of inadequate cover rock. Variation in salinity depends on rock strata
characteristics more than proximity to the ocean. The BGR-GSD map shows two lines of
salinity – the first where salinity levels affect taste but water quality is suitable for livestock
and poultry, and the second where salinity levels are too high for any sort of use.
The dwindling water supply from Lake Volta is a topic of concern among environmental
planners and others in Ghana59, but as yet the concern is more over the future of power
generation than the loss of water.
The concern in the climate change literature about loss of coastal mangrove forests is
irrelevant in Accra, since the mangroves are already gone. But silt is a serious issue, since a
clogged lagoon means more storm water backing up the system and causing flooding
upstream60. Erosion along shorelines has been identified as vulnerable to human
encroachment61. Beaches are composed of fluvial lagoonal sands and are highly unstable, and
planners are advised to prevent any kind of construction on sand or any land surface below
ten meters in elevation. Among related concerns are toxins and bacterial agents in storm
water runoff, which are impounded in the lagoon for indefinite periods62.
3.4. The prognosis for Accra
With an estimated 555 square kilometers in 200263, Accra continues to consume an ever-
greater swath of territory in southern Ghana, with growth patterns expanding far from the
formal central business district and downtown areas, and without any formal planning to
speak of64 . Although no precise figures are available, the dynamic of temporary and seasonal
mobility from the Sahelian countries, itself a long-term pattern, is likely to increase as climate
change-related drought worsens and agricultural workers are directly affected. It is important
to emphasis that the pattern of sustained migration puts more people at risk of adverse
weather events and also possible sea-level rise.
A 2009 study by Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Netherlands
Climate Assistance Programme predicts Ghana’s cocoa production will be jeopardized by
drought in the near future65. The EPA research estimated that over 800,000 families,
including farm owners, sharecroppers and their dependents, who are directly engaged in
cocoa production and whose livelihoods directly depend on cocoa would lose their livelihoods
by the year 2020.
This will create an increasingly desperate situation for the internally displaced in the city, with
few if any job opportunities and high transportation and living expense costs. Looking on the
bright side, additional people will create additional market demand, but this is weighed
58 BGR-GSD, 2006
59 Gyau-Boakye, 2001
60 The Statesman, June 13th 2009
61 BGR-GSD, 2006
62 Boadi and Kuitunen, 2002
63 Moller-Jensen et al., 2005
64 Grant and Yankson, 2003
65 Darko, 2009

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against numerous negative consequences of continued growth, including additional stress on
limited resources such as water, food, farmland, and electric power.
Evidence from the past, most notably the 1968-74 and 1982-85 droughts in the Sahel,
suggests that many so-called environmental refugees did eventually return to their lands with
the onset of regular rainfall. With any number of climate change scenarios66 this supposition
of ‘a return to normalcy’ may not be realistic. Drought will continue to focus migration flows
from the interior to cities on the coast, thus amplifying long-term trends, but in a housing and
infrastructural context that may not permit additional entrants without severe consequences.
66 Warner et al, 2009

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