Land use/ land cover (LULC) change has been identified as the main driving force of global change. The study investigated LULC change in Tordzie watershed in Ghana and predicted the future development. The supervised classification procedure was applied to Landsat images of 1987, 2003, and 2017. The cellular automata–Markov model embedded in IDRISI 17 software was employed to model LULC for the years 2030 and 2050. The trend of LULC change was exploited from 1987 to 2003, from 2003 to 2017, and projected to 2030 and 2050. Settlement and crop land, respectively, increased from 2.68% to 16.46% in 1987 to 3.65% and 53.47% in 2003 and finally to 20.61% and 58.52% in 2017. Vegetation cover declined from 23.2% in 1987 to 13.9% in 2003 and finally to 11.3% in 2017. The annual rate of change was determined. In 2030 and 2050, the dominant land use type will be crop land (56%). However, it decreased between 2017 and 2030 by −1.73%. The findings of the study are very relevant to land and water resource planners, policy formulators and implementers, and environmental and climate change advocates. Sustainable land use policy and its implementation are recommended.

The study assesses the effects of climate variability on food crop yield of the smallholder farmers in the Lower Offin River Basin, Ghana. Spline Interpolation and Spearman rank correlation coefficient were employed to examine the spatial and seasonal distribution of climate variables. Yield anomaly index and multiple linear regression models were used to assess the effect of climate variability on food crop yield. The results showed that the higher values of seasonality and replicability indices of rainfall indicate that rainfall is concentrated within few months causing prolonged dry spells and frequent droughts during the cropping period. The regression analysis revealed that climate variability has had differential impacts on the yield of maize, rice, cassava, yam, cocoyam and plantain ranging from 18.4 % in the case of plantain to 80.0 % in the case of cocoyam. Also, cocoyam, yam and rice were much more affected by climatic conditions in contrast with maize, cassava and plantain. Therefore, there is the need to adopt drought-resistant high-yielding crop varieties to sustain high crop yield. Again, cassava and plantain have the potential to withstand climate variability which is very significant in the Lower Offin River Basin.