Hazards and Vulnerability Mapping for Adaptation to Climate Risks in Savannah Ecosystem: A Case Study of the Upper East Region, Ghana

Abstract

The climate is warming, a trend that is projected to increase with increasing frequency and intensity of climate related hazards. Impacts are likely to be greater in developing countries because of dependence on climate sensitive livelihood activities. The nature and impacts of climate hazards require a study that goes beyond investigating a single hazard or livelihood activity to embrace multiple hazards and their impacts on the various livelihood activities. It is against this background that this research was set up to undertake a multi-hazard/multi-sector analysis and mapping of vulnerability and identify policy options to enhance adaptation in the savannah ecosystem, using the Upper East Region as a case study. To achieve this, an integrated framework was developed to guide the research. Assessment of the various components of the framework required varied datasets and different methods of data collection and analysis. The primary data was collected using questionnaires, focus group discussions, photography, as well as personal observation. The secondary data consisting of daily weather and socio-economic and geographic data was collected from relevant institutions, policies and published reports. The weather data was analysed using the Standard Precipitation Index and plotted with R. The questionnaire survey and socio-economic data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Science and Excel while the focus group discussions were subjected to manual content analysis.

The datasets were used to develop indicators of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity and converted into geographic layers for mapping in ArcGIS 9.3. The individual indicators were georeferenced using the district boundaries since most of these datasets were collected at district scale. The analyses identified hazards occurring as droughts, floods, high temperatures, heavy rainfall and windstorms. They occur very frequently, sometimes alternately or concurrently. These hazards have occurred more than 9 times on the average from 1983 to 2012 and have caused considerable damage to most sectors, particularly agriculture, health, housing and water sectors. The maps produced reveal where the Region is vulnerable to these climatic hazards. Droughts/high temperatures are shown to be the most devastating hazards. The agriculture sector is the most vulnerable to droughts/high temperatures and was highly vulnerable in 9 districts, while the health and water sectors show high vulnerability in 8 and 6 districts respectively. The Region was resilient to floods/heavy rainfall with 3 and 6 districts recording low vulnerabilities in the agriculture and health sectors respectively. Vulnerability to these hazards calls for adaptation. Analyses suggest that adaptation policies and programmes should target areas where adaptive capacity is low. Options to increase adaptive capacities and reduce vulnerability include irrigation, improving healthcare, education, extension and outreach, livelihood diversification, use of drought/heat tolerant crops and transplanting crops. Government could also consider transforming the Region’s economy by partnering with the private sector to invest in available opportunities such as mining, tanning, revamping the tomato cannery, to create alternative employment, propel development and advance further research in vulnerability studies. The major contributions of this work are the multi-hazard/multi-sector approach to analysis of vulnerability and adaptation to climate risks and an integrated conceptual framework it presents.