Determinants of adaptation strategies to offset decreasing provisioning ecosystem services in the Savannah ecological zone of Ghana

Abstract

Complex environmental challenges associated with altering provisioning ecosystem services (PES) impede the livelihood requirements of environmental reliant households in Ghana. International efforts at unearthing sustainable pathways have acknowledged the role of adaptation as a policy option. This notwithstanding, existing studies has largely focused on coping and adaptation strategies to rising temperature and erratic rainfall. Few studies have attempted to explore the factors that determine the capacity of individuals to adapt to waning supply of PES. This study employed a mixed methodological design to interview 400 smallholder farmers. The results reveal that in vulnerable landscapes, smallholder farmers were more likely to implement off-farm adaptation measures such as livelihood diversification, migration, sale of assets to purchase grains and altering diets. Conversely, in resilient landscapes, smallholder farmers were more likely to implement on-farm adaptation strategies such as planting drought tolerant crop varieties and application of manure. The findings further reveal that ecosystem compatible adaptation measures such as agro-forestry and reclamation of degraded lands are costly to implement, hence have been practised by few smallholder farmers. Binary Logistic Regressions (BLR) modelling indicates that the ecological zone of an area and socio-economic factors such as sex, education, age, land tenure arrangement, length of stay in the community, and position in household significantly determine the choice of adaptation measures implemented by smallholder farmers. The integration and mainstreaming of local level adaptation practices in conventional practices are pivotal to enhancing ecosystem integrity and livelihood resilience.