SEA for Water Resource Management in Ghana

Abstract

Water resource development projects such as dams constitute a major direct and indirect cause of nature destruction and disruptions in the livelihoods of local communities worldwide. Although these projects have their positive and negative impacts, poor environmental assessments of the effects of such projects have led to the negative impacts far outweighing the positive impacts. Ghana as a developing country has been grumbling over the negative impacts of such water resource development projects. Examples are the Volta and Kpong dams, which have impacted negatively on local communities and caused disruptions in the ecosystem of the Volta River. The irony of the situation is that Ghana now has to find sources of electricity for its increasing development needs. And hydropower seems to be the cheapest option as at now. However, the environmental impacts of large water resources development projects like dams seem to be a major concern of society now. This is one of the reasons why SEA and EIA are seen as tools for minimizing the impacts of such water resource development projects in Ghana and most developing countries. This chapter takes a look at the impacts of large dam projects in Ghana and the suitability for SEA in water resources management in Ghana. The chapter first takes a look at the impacts of large dams in Ghana (Sect. 21.2), then some EA legislation and constraints in the country (Sect. 21.3) relevant to water resource management are mentioned, Sects. 21.4 and 25.5 looks at the issue of applying SEA and EIA to water resources management and the benefits such a sectorial SEA will bring Ghana, Finally suggestions are made on how such an SEA could be implemented taking Ghana’s system of governance into consideration.