Urban land-cover change is increasing dramatically in most developing nations. In Africa and in the New Juaben municipality of Ghana in particular, political stability and active socioeconomic progress has pushed the urban frontier into the countryside at the expense of the natural ecosystems at ever-increasing rates. Using Landsat satellite imagery from 1985 to 2003, the study found that the urban core expanded by 10% and the peri-urban areas expanded by 25% over the period. Projecting forward to 2015, it is expected that urban infrastructure will constitute 70% of the total land area in the municipality. Giving way to urban expansion were losses in open woodlands (19%), tree fallow (9%), croplands (4%), and grass fallow (3%), with further declines expected for 2015. Major drivers of land-cover changes are attributed to demographic changes and past microeconomic policies, particularly the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP); the Economic Recovery Programme (ERP); and, more recently, the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS). Pluralistic land administration, complications in the land tenure systems, institutional inefficiencies, and lack of capacity in land administration were also

In recent years, land use (LU) and landscape structure in ecoregions around the world have been faced with enormous pressures, from rapid population growth to urban sprawl. A preliminary account of changes in land cover (LC) and landscape structure in the ecoregions of Ghana is missing from the academic and research literature. The study therefore provides a preliminary assessment of the changing LU and landscape structure in the ecoregions of Ghana, identifying the causes and assessing their impact on land-based resources, and on urban and agricultural development. LU/LC maps produced from 30 m resolution Landsat TM5 in 1990 and ETM+ + + in 2000 were classified into dominant land cover types (LCTs) and used to survey the changing landscape of Ghana. LC-change map preparation was done with change detection extension "Veränderung" (v3) in an ArcGIS 10.1 environment. At the class level, Patch Analyst version 5.1 was used to calculate land use (LU) statistics and to provide landscape metrics for LU maps extracted from the satellite imagery. The results showed that commonly observed LCCs in the ecoregions of Ghana include conversion of natural forest land to various forms of cultivated lands, settlements, and open land, particularly in closed and open forest and savannah woodland. The dominant LU types in the ecoregions of Ghana are arable lands, which increased by 6168.98 km 2 2 2 . Forest and plantation LCTs decreased in area and were replaced by agricultural land, forest garden, and open land. Afforestation rarely occurred except in the rainforests. The mean patch size (MPS), a measure of fragmentation, was generally reduced consistently from 1990 to 2000 in all the ecoregions. Similar results that indicated increased fragmentation were an increased number of patches (NumP) and the Shannon diversity index (SDI). Habitat shape complexity inferred from mean shape index (MSI) decreased in all ecore-gions except for rainforest and wet evergreen. The SDI and Shannon evenness index (SEI) showed that habitat diversity was highest in the coastal savannah and the deciduous forest ecoregions. The main drivers of changes in the LUs and landscape structure are demand for land and land-based natural resources to support competing livelihoods and developmental activities in the different ecoregions.

Objective: Stand structure, composition, abundance and diversity of tree species of the northern forest-savanna ecotone were characterized to determine their spatial variability for land management. Methodology and result: An inventory of the in-situ tree community of the northern forest-savanna ecotone of Ghana was undertaken using the stratified random sampling technique. In all, 1453 individuals, representing 88 species, 78 genera and 30 families were identified in the study. Antiaris toxicaria, Adansonia digitata, Acacia albida, Afzelia africana and Vitellaria paradoxum were found most dominant in the vegetation. A gradation of tree distribution was evident as the 'near-savanna' portion of the ecotone was more species-rich than the 'nearforest' portion. Significant differences were observed of the species richness, densities and diversity of trees across sites (P < 0.05) and savanna trees were preponderant over forest species. Conclusion and application: This work has provided evidence of variability in tree species composition, richness, density and diversity across the northern forest-savanna ecotone of Ghana. The information could be crucial for monitoring and managing agro-ecosystems sustainability. A future study would be required to isolate proximate factors of tree species distribution in the ecotone.

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