Abstract
The current trends of land use dynamics have revealed a significant transformation of settlement spaces. In the Wa Municipality of Ghana, the changes in land use and land cover are inspired by a plethora of driving forces. In this study, we assessed the geo-physical drivers of settlement expansion under land use dynamics in the Wa Municipality of Ghana. The study employed geospatial and remote sensing tools to map and analyse the spatio-temporal dynamics of the landscape, using Landsat satellite imageries: thematic mapper (TM), enhanced thematic mapper (ETM) and operational land imager (OLI) from 1990 to 2020. The study employed a binomial logistic regression model to statistically assess the geo-physical drivers of settlement expansion. Random forest (RF)–supervised classification based on spatio-temporal analyses generated relatively higher classification accuracies, with overall accuracy ranging from 89.33% to 93.3%. Urban expansion for the last three decades was prominent, as the period from 1990 to 2001 gained 11.44 km2 landmass of settlement, while there was 11.30 km2 gained from 2001 to 2010, and 29.44 km2 gained from 2010 to 2020. Out of the independent variables assessed, the distance to existing settlements, distance to river, and distance to primary, tertiary and unclassified roads were responsible for urban expansion.
Highlights
Urban land covers a relatively small proportion of the global terrestrial landscape but inhabits over half of the global population [1]
Trends in urban land expansion and population over the past decades show that the increase in global population lags behind urban land expansion [3], urban land expansion is associated with urbanisation, which is a product of population growth
The Wa Municipality is characterised by savannah vegetation, with open savannah covering the largest extent of the area
Summary
Urban land covers a relatively small proportion of the global terrestrial landscape but inhabits over half of the global population [1]. Urbanisation coupled with urban land expansion exerts a profound impact on the environment, as it causes destruction of terrestrial ecosystems, leading to loss of biodiversity and the degradation of resources [4]. Chen et al [1] projected that global urban land will continue to expand with an increasing rate before the 2040s They asserted that China and many other Asian countries might face significant pressure from urban population after the 2050s. Increasing urbanisation and associated population exert pressure on natural resources and a high demand for the ecosystem services in effect, leading to critical environmental consequences, such as water crises, microclimatic alteration and natural resources degradation [9,11]. Ferreira et al [13] established significant destruction in ecosystem as a result of urbanisation, among which the reduction of vegetation was prominent
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