How urbanisation shapes availability of provisioning ecosystem services in peri-urban Ghana

ABSTRACT

Provisioning ecosystem services are under threat in peripheral areas in African cities due to urbanisation pressures. Previous studies have focused on land conversion and food crop production. How urbanisation pressures intertwine with the provisioning ecosystem services availability to peri-urban households is an empirical question, which this paper answered using Wa in Ghana as a case. The mixed method research approach was employed involving 400 randomly selected households with the aid of a questionnaire, while interviews were also conducted with relevant stakeholders. Descriptive statistics and a five-point Likert scale were used to analyse the household data, while interview responses were thematised. We observed that urbanisation adversely affected ecosystems, reducing the availability of wild fruits, fuelwood, and game to farmer households. From the households’ perspective, most of these services will disappear in the future as urbanisation intensifies. We recommend the restoration of degraded lands for the conservation of natural habitats.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecosystem
• Ghana
• provisioning services
• peri-urban
• urbanisation

Introduction

Peri-urban areas of African cities have attracted the attention of the academic community because of the rapid and unplanned land conversion taking place there (Coulibaly and Li 2020). The rapid land conversion at the peripheries is attributed to the increasing number of city’s inhabitants who cannot find space in the core areas to meet their residential housing and commercial needs, do better gardening, and access green spaces (Cahya et al. 2018; Sharma-Wallace 2016) and, thus, must resort to these areas to acquire land for such purposes (Cahya et al. 2018). In sub-Saharan Africa, rising urban populations and urbanisation at the peripheries are driven by external and internal forces. External forces are closely linked to rapid industrialisation, modernisation, globalisation, marketisation, economic growth, investment and rising incomes of urbanites (Areola et al. 2014; Liao et al. 2017; Gu 2019), while rural-urban migration, natural population increase, growing urban land market, and poor enforcement of planning schemes constitute the internal drivers (Areola et al. 2014; Sawyer 2014; Cobbinah et al. 2015; Abdulai et al. 2021). The combined forces have led to the influx of people into cities, creating intense competition for space at the core areas amidst land scarcity and speculation (Areola et al. 2014). The intense competition pushes up land and rental prices high in the core areas and compels people seeking to acquire land to turn to the peri-urban areas which offers an opportunity to procure a comparatively low-cost and large expanse of land. In line with Tacoli (1999, 2003), we can think of the peri-urban area as the transitional zone that lies between the city and the rural areas where both rural and urban characteristics interact to produce a dynamic socio-economic environment that presents both opportunities and constraints for residents. In developing economies such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, peri-urban areas are shaped by the combined forces of public investment, private capital, and individual developers through the construction of residential housing, public infrastructure, and industrial estates on former agricultural lands and natural and semi natural areas (Abdulai et al. 2021; Leitner et al. 2022).

As urbanisation at the peripheries intensifies, social and economic opportunities and constraints emerge for residents including farmer households.¹ The opportunities created enable residents to undertake urban-based economic activities as an alternative or complementary to farming, thereby triggering the massive transformation of former rural economies into new urbanising forms that are quite distinct from the conventional rural and urban forms (Pradoto et al. 2018). Previous studies (e.g. Oduro et al. 2015; Banu and Fazal 2017; Tadesse and Imana 2017; Abdulai et al. 2021) show that urbanisation at the periphery has created opportunities for farmer households to undertake urban-based economic activities in the retail and construction sectors to earn more income and to improve their living standards. However, the ecological footprints of urbanisation at the fringes on ecosystems, for example, in Africa are a source of concern (Awoyemi and Ibánez-Álamo 2023) given that they threaten the achievement of the sustainable urbanisation agenda captured in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Specifically, SDG 11 seeks to encourage the building of inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities (United Nations 2015). This is because urbanisations at the peripheries could contribute to the loss, degradation, and fragmentation of natural habitats which will in turn disturb ecosystems and disrupt the supply of services that provides support and can be essential for human sustenance and good quality of life (Awoyemi and Ibánez-Álamo 2023). This view is in line with the core assumptions of the urban ecology theory which focuses on understanding how human activities such as housing construction and industrial activities in the city setting affect the ecosystems and the associated services they provide (Ramalho and Hobbs 2012; Wu 2014). Based on this, the theory views the city as an ecosystem wherein areas within or without experienced human activities and transformation that ultimately disrupt the flow of services of nature (food and livelihood) for people especially those in rural areas (Parris 2018).

The concerns regarding ecosystem services are critical because they contribute to people’s food and livelihoods, especially in Africa where rich biodiversity and ecosystems are found. It is also argued that Africa is one of the hotspots of biodiversity where all known species of mammals, birds, and plants are found (Wootton and Shackleton 2023). Thus, the continent is home to the world’s most diverse and biologically important ecosystems such as savannahs, tropical forests, coral reefs, marine and freshwater habitats, and wetlands (Sintayehu 2018; Wootton and Shackleton 2023) which provide important services to mankind. These services are collectively known as ecosystem services (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services [IPBES] 2019). In the literature that discusses ecosystem services, three categories are distinguished: regulation and maintenance, cultural and provisioning services. The regulation and maintenance services include all the ways in which living organisms can mediate or moderate the ambient environment that affects human health, safety, or comfort, together with abiotic equivalents (Haines-Young and Potschin-Young 2018). These include pollination, decomposition, disease regulation, purification of water, erosion and flood control, and climate regulation to make the environment liveable. The cultural services provided by nature relate to the non-material outputs of ecosystems (biotic and abiotic) that affect people’s physical and mental well-being (Haines-Young and Potschin-Young 2018) and these include the recreation, health, spiritual and aesthetic features of green spaces (Heymans et al. 2019; Spyra et al. 2020). However, the provisioning ecosystem services are the focus of this paper. The focus is on the provisioning ecosystem services (food, water, plants, wild fruits, spices, and animals) because of their centrality in meeting human food needs and sustaining livelihoods especially in rural communities in sub-Saharan African cities (Shao et al. 2021). However, urbanisation at the peripheries is leading to the loss of biodiversity and contributing to the alteration of the structures and functions of ecological systems that provided these critical life sustaining services to farmer households who are in direct contact with nature. This is because the provision of biodiversity-based ecosystem services and the wellbeing of people that rely on these services are being modified and, in some cases, degraded (Sintayehu 2018), adversely affecting their ability to provide the associated services (Heymans et al., 2019). Such developments portend trouble for urban and peri-urban food supply chain challenges and thus pose a threat to the attainment SDG 11 by 2030.

Recent scholarship (Abdulai et al. 2020; Aguilar et al. 2022; Pratiwi et al. 2022) show that peri-urban areas in Africa are often problem spaces. Coupled with climate change, and acute shortage of services amidst profound land conversion, urbanisation could pose far-reaching socio-economic and environmental consequences to peri-urban farmer households who depend directly on the environment for their food and livelihoods. Yet, concerns regarding the ecological footprints of urbanisation at the peripheries and implications on farmer households, who rely on nature for food and income, are rarely given enough attention in the extant literature (Benjamin et al. 2018). But the degradation of ecosystems renders farmer households susceptible to food insecurity and livelihood losses as the land conversion at the peripheries intensifies. This is because such development could deny them the opportunities to benefit from provisioning ecosystem services which are essential for human wellbeing and sustainable livelihoods. However, scholarship on peri-urban areas in Saharan African cities has largely focused on the impact of urbanisation at the peripheries in general (Cobbinah et al. 2015; Coulibaly and Li 2020), food production (Lerner et al. 2013; Osumanu and Ayamdoo 2022; Kuusaana et al. 2022), livelihoods (Abdulai etal., 2020; Abdulai et al. 2021), small livestock production (Abdulai 2022) and land commodification (Leitner and Sheppard 2022).

In Ghana, few studies have, however, gone beyond land use changes to understand how ecosystems are impacted by urbanisation. For example, Ashiagbor et al. (2019) draw on the implications of land use changes on ecosystem services, while institutional perspectives to understand the dynamics of urbanisation pressures on peri-urban ecosystems and services were the focus of Puplampu and Boafo (2021). These studies, although critical, show a lack of focus on the nuances of peri-urban farmer households’ experience of how urbanisation pressures affect ecosystems and the provisioning services that they hitherto enjoyed. Therefore, our knowledge about the availability of specific provisioning ecosystem services to farmer households under urbanisation pressures is inadequate to fully understand the dynamics at play, especially peri-urban farmer households’ perceptions. Hence, a nuanced understanding of how and to what extent the phenomena affect farmer households’ access to provisioning ecosystem services is crucial for setting proper strategies for efficient urban planning and sustainable livelihoods. To this end, the study draws evidence from Wa, Ghana to examine how urbanisation shapes provisioning ecosystem services. Wa is an excellent candidate for the study because several studies (Ziem Bonye et al. 2021; Abdulai et al. 2022; Sumbo et al. 2023) show that the city is fast expanding in the peri-urban areas which perhaps has led to the degradation of landscapes and ecosystems. In doing so, the study seeks to address the following related research objectives: (1) explore farmer households’ perceptions of the effects of urbanisation on ecosystem provisioning services, and (2) examine how urbanisation at the periphery affects the availability of provisioning ecosystem services to farmer households. The novelty of the study is that it goes beyond the impact of urbanisation on ecosystems reported by previous studies to examine the current and future status availability of provisioning ecosystem services to farmer households who live in direct contact with these resources. The findings gleaned will provide a vital contribution to ongoing scientific debates on urbanisation and ecosystem services and urge the urgency of conservation in global discussions about sustainable cities. The paper is structured as follows: section two focuses on the literature review, while in section three, we discuss the methodology deployed to carry out the study. In section four, we present the results, while section five is used to discuss the findings of the study. The conclusions and policy implications as well as the limitations and the direction for future research are discussed concludes the paper.

Literature review

Cities across the world are experiencing population increase and this trend is expected to continue in the coming decades. However, much of the future urban population growth is expected to happen in Africa and Asia (Henderson 2002; Wang et al. 2022; Guo et al. 2022). According to Ritchie and Roser (2018), more than 80% of the population in high income countries such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan live in urban areas, while in countries in the middle-income category, the figure ranges from 50% to 80%. Likewise in Africa, most countries including Ghana have crossed the 50% urban population threshold and still counting (Ghana Statistical Service 2021). The general increase in urban populations and the demand for living spaces per person in all regions of the world have raised concerns regarding how sustainable urbanisation could be attained. This is because the current unsustainable urbanisation trajectories that are occurring in developing countries and in sub-Saharan Africa have the potential to undermine the attainment of goal 11 and associated targets by 2030, which together represent a shared vision of better and more sustainable urban futures.

Unsustainable urbanisation manifests in as more people move into cities and subsequently increase the demand for living spaces. Such development suggests that more land and other natural resources will be required to meet their residential and commercial needs. But land and other natural resources required for housing and meeting the commercial needs of the growing population are limited in the city centre. This development compels people to turn to the peripheral areas for land, leading to the horizontal expansion of cities into the adjacent rural communities (Henderson 2002; Brenner 2013) creating a new urban form known as peri-urban area (Peng et al. 2011; Tacoli, 1998; Sharma-Wallace, 2016). Urbanisation at the peripheries of African cities is largely fuelled by the redistribution of populations from rural to urban settlements, the demand for spaces, and the socioeconomic opportunities that exist in the urban areas (Awumbila 2017). With the unique feature of urban and rural activities taking place simultaneously, the peri-urban areas are also a hotspot for rapid land conversion and loss of natural habitat and biodiversity and associated services residents enjoyed (Tacoli, 1998; Sharma-Wallace, 2016). The development puts ecosystems at risk of losing their ability to provide natural services (Mngumi 2020). This problem is more pronounced in developing countries because peri-urban areas are developed ahead of planning, making it difficult to enforce planning rules and regulations that could protect natural habitats that accommodate ecosystems (Mngumi 2020; Anane and Cobbinah 2022; Finn and Cobbinah 2023). Urbanisation pressures on the peri-urban landscapes manifest in diminishing open green spaces; and degradation of natural resources such as water and urban forests which together provide provisioning services to people living around them (Mngumi 2020).

The degradation of ecosystems may perhaps portend trouble because several millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa depend on their services for food and to sustain livelihoods (Feng et al. 2021; Spyra et al. 2020; Haase 2021; Pratiwi et al. 2022). Previous studies in Ghanaian cities (Abass et al. 2018; Ashiagbor et al. 2019; Abdulai et al. 2022), for example, have already shown that urbanisation has led to the removal of natural habitat such as vegetation cover in the peri-urban areas due to urbanisation is widespread. For instance, Abass et al. (2018) study in Kumasi revealed that urbanisation at the peripheries has led to the loss of vegetative cover, green spaces, natural habitats, and ecologically sensitive areas. In Accra, Ashiagbor et al. (2019) reported the removal of natural vegetation cover due to urbanisation at the peripheries and draw implications of this development on ecosystem services in general but the perspectives of farmer households were not sought. Although these studies demonstrated the loss of vegetation cover and biodiversity, they lack a focus on the specific provisioning ecosystem services that are lost and how that affects farmer households who hitherto depended on them for food and livelihoods. The works of Abdulai et al. (2022) in Wa and Osumanu and Ayamdoo (2022) in Bolgatanga, also show a similar trend of loss of vegetation cover and biodiversity due to rapid land conversion at the peripheries but again, issues relating to effects on provisioning ecosystem services and how farmer households are affected were not discussed. The only study that appears to directly centre on the pressures of urbanisation on ecosystem service is that of Puplampu and Boafo (2021) in the inner city of Accra. The study used responses from officials from state agencies, civil society organisations, and satellite images of landcover changes to argue that green spaces provide general ecosystem services to residents, but dense vegetation cover has been reduced due to the rapid expansion of built-up areas in the city.

Elsewhere in Africa, the work of Adedire (2018) in Ikorodu, Nigeria shows that unplanned urbanisation at the peripheries had led to the removal of vegetation cover and biodiversity losses from 1980 to 2002 but how that affected farmer households was not discussed. Admasu et al. (2020) work in Bahir Dar in Ethiopia shows that urban expansion has led to the expropriation provisioning ecosystem services (vegetables, wild fruits, medicinal plants, etc.) in peri-urban areas of the city. However issues relating to the critical services that farmer households draw on to make a living did not find space in the study. Mngumi (2020) also cites urbanisation pressures (construction of urban infrastructure) as the reasons for the degradation of ecosystems and provisioning services supply disruption in peri-urban areas in sub-Saharan African cities but falls short of explaining how farmer households are currently affected and their opinion on future availability of the services to them. Furthermore, Kioko et al. (2022) work in Nairobi raises questions about the effects of urban sprawl on environmental quality and argues that the development has led to environmental degradation and biodiversity losses. Kisamba and Li (2023) analysis and modelling of urban growth of Dodoma urban district in Tanzania from 2005 to 2020 using land use and cover change as benchmarks revealed that vegetative cover of peri-urban areas has reduced but predict that vegetative cover will increase in the next 10 years. But issues relating to the critical services that farmer households draw on to earn a living did not find space in the study. However, the perceptions of how urbanisation at the periphery shapes the availability of provisioning ecosystem service by farmer households who live in direct contact with these resources have not been considered with enough importance. But such perceptions are important in fashioning out actions to secure and preserve natural habitats because the farmer households can contribute to preserving natural habitats through their everyday practices. The current study is inspired by these gaps in knowledge concerning how urbanisation is shaping the availability of provisioning ecosystem services to farmer households in peri-urban areas in African cities.

Methodology

Study setting

The study was conducted in Wa, the capital of Wa Municipality and Upper West Region. The Municipality (Figure 1) is in the north-western part of Ghana and shares administrative boundaries with three other districts in the Region: Nadowli, Wa East and Wa West districts. Lying within latitudes 1º40’N to 2º45’N and longitudes 9º32’W to 10º20’W (Ghana Statistical Service 2014), Wa is also one of the fastest growing secondary cities in the country (World Bank 2018). According to the Ghana Statistical Service (2021), the city has 143,358 residents out of the Municipality’s 200,672 people. The occupation of the people is predominantly farming with a few of them engaged in services and retail activities. Specifically, the inhabitants of the city engaged in varied and several activities such as skilled agricultural, forestry, and fishery workers, communication, tourism, transport services, sales, craft and related trades, and other professions to earn a living (Ghana Statistical Service 2014). It is also reported that those who engaged in agriculture were mostly food crop farmers and poultry keepers.

Figure 1. Study area in regional and national context.

Source: Adopted from Abdulai et al. (2022).

It is important to mention that agriculture is the dominant economic activity among residents, especially in the peripheral communities (Ghana Statistical Service 2014). The predominance of agriculture as a critical occupation of a large proportion of the inhabitants of the study area can be attributed to, perhaps, the lack of formal education and limited skills to be engaged in the urban economy that has emerged in the areas. The guinea savannah grassland is the vegetation type found in the area. It is characterised by short trees which are scattered and found mainly near river courses and edges of forest with little or no canopy and shrubs of varying heights and luxuriance (Amoako and Gambiza 2019). The ground is only covered with fresh grasses in the wet season. Shea trees, dawadawa trees, kapok trees and baobab are the common ones found in the area. Cashew and mango also grow well in the area. The climate of the area is marked by a long dry season (October to March) and a relatively short wet season (April to September). The amount of rainfall received ranges from 840 mm to 1400 mm but most of it is recorded from June to September (Ghana Statistical Service 2014). Thus, the climate alongside the vegetation type enables the cultivation of food crops and the growth of numerous wild plants and animals that provides an avenue for residents, especially those in the rural and peripheral areas to access provisioning ecosystem services. The free provisioning ecosystem services common in the area includes food (sweet potato, bean), wild fruits (shea, mango), vegetables (‘Ayoyo’ [Jute mallow], pumpkin, okra, tomato, ‘Alefu’ [Amaranth] moringa leaves, Bre [Roselle] and pepper, fish, wildlife (rabbits, mouses, antelopes, monkeys), fresh water and spices (Senegal pepper, Aridan, Aligator pepper etc.). However, the adverse impact of human activities has led to the loss of the vegetative cover and associated services which hitherto provided food and livelihoods for the people living in peri-urban communities.

Study approach

The study draws on the mixed method research approach to understand how urbanisation at the peripheries of Wa affects the availability of provisioning ecosystem services. This is because adopting a single perspective will likely not provide us with a deeper understanding of the issues (Kaushik and Walsh 2019). In this view, quantitative and qualitative approaches were adopted to collect, analyse, and draw inferences from the data to gain a broader and in-depth understanding of how urbanisation at the peripheries of cities impacted ecosystem services provisions and farmer households’ access in their quest to eke out a living (Tashakkori and Creswell 2007; Leech and Onwuegbuzie 2009; Morgan 2014; Brierley 2017; Kaushik and Walsh 2019). This allowed us to integrate the different sets of data at the presentation stage to expand the understanding of the specific issue of interest (Brierley 2017). In selecting the research participants, we were guided by the assumptions of quantitative and qualitative research approaches, and as such we employed probability and non-probability sampling procedures, questionnaires, and interviews to elicit the data. The questionnaire was applied to farmer households, while an interview guide was applied to relevant stakeholders to gain a deeper insight and broaden our understanding of the situation of provisioning ecosystem services under urbanisation pressures. Because we intended to make effective use of time and resources, while ensuring that we obtained credible data, we adopted the concurrent mixed method design (Nowell et al. 2020). With the concurrent mixed method strategy, both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered at the same time (Nowell et al. 2020) to address the research objective(s) of the study. Based on this perspective, we gathered quantitative data via questionnaires from sampled households alongside qualitative data from relevant stakeholders through interviews.

Sample size determination and sampling procedures

Three peripheral communities – Bamahu, Kompala, Danko, and Nakori – were purposively selected to participate in the study. The selection of the communities was guided by some previous studies (Korah et al. 2018; Abdulai et al. 2021; Abdulai 2022) that show they are the fastest-urbanising in Wa. We also used our knowledge of the communities experiencing urbanisation to select them for the study. For the households, we first determined the sample size to be used to conduct the study. Sampling size determination is critical in undertaking scientific research because it ensures that the appropriate number of research participants is selected to participate and contribute to making the results useful to the academic community (Dell et al. 2002). In doing so, we used the total number of indigenous households² (1,260) in the selected communities to compute the sample size of the study. This was done using the equation; n = N/(1+Ne²) where n= sample size, N = population size, and e = level of precision value set at 0.05 (Yamane 1967 cited in Chaokromthong and Sintao 2021). Therefore, n = 1260/(1 + 1260 × 0.05²) yielded 400 at a 5% alpha level. The computed sample size (400) was then allocated to the three communities based on the total households in each (Table 1).

Table 1. Sample size distribution.

Community	Total Households	Survey Sample	In-depth Interviews	FGDs
Kompaala	108	34	3	2
Bamahu	370	118	3	2
Nakori	372	118	3	2
Danko	410	130	3	2
Total	1,260	400	12	8

To select the participating households in the household survey, the lists of households in each community were assigned numbers and then selected using the lottery (fishbowl) method without replacement. Here, we first cut paper into slips, assigned numbers to the households, put them in a container, and shaffled. Thereafter, the slips were picked randomly from the container one after the other until the sample proportion was obtained for each community (Alvi 2016). Because we wanted to capture the widest range of perspectives to gain a holistic understanding of the issues examined, the maximum variation purposive sampling technique was also used to select relevant stakeholders to share their views on the issues under investigation (Patton 2002). As such, 12 in-depth interviews were conducted with purposively sampled stakeholders. Each interview lasted for an average of 40 minutes. These include four family heads (one from each community), four leaders of women groups (one from each community), three chiefs (from Bamahu, Nakori and Kompala), and one elder from Danko. In addition, four Tindamba³ (one from each community) were also purposively sampled to participate in the study. Furthermore, eight focus group discussions (FGDs) (two from each community) were conducted with women and men groups to discuss how urbanisation at the peripheries was impacting access to provisioning ecosystem services, food supplies, and wellbeing (see Table 1). For each FGD, the number of participants ranged from six to 10 and lasted for an average of 45 minutes. Before the commencement of data collection, the research participants were duly informed of the background, purpose, and objective of the study, and their verbal consent was obtained. All interviews and FGDs were conducted in the local dialect and later transcribed into English.

Data collection and analytical procedures

A questionnaire was used for household surveys to elicit data from sampled farmer households in the communities. The questionnaire was developed by the researchers and covered issues relating to the background characteristics of respondents, perceptions about urbanisation at the peripheries, impacts on ecosystems, ecosystem services, and farmer households’ access to these services for their livelihoods. The questions related to how urbanisation at the peripheries affected their access to crops, firewood, medicinal plants, wild fruits, freshwater, fishing, hunting, or harvesting of food, spices, wild vegetable, wild mushroom, honey, raw materials among others which we considered as important provisioning services for their livelihoods. The ecosystem services were selected based on preliminary visits to the study sites and our knowledge of their importance to the livelihoods of the people, especially for farmers’ households. Details about the age, ethnicity, gender, and occupation structure of the people surveyed were also collected. Before the commencement of data collection, four enumerators were hired and trained to conduct the household survey. They were trained on how to interpret the items on the questionnaire and to observe ethical protocols in the field. Thereafter, the questionnaire was pre-tested with 12 peri-urban farmer households in the Kpongu community (another peri-urban community that is not part of the study). The identified ambiguities and misinterpretations of the items identified from the pre-testing were then corrected before the actual data collection. The household survey data gathered were inputted into SPSS version 28 and cleaned before the commencement of analysis. Thereafter, we deployed descriptive statistics, and a five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, and strongly agree) to analyse the survey data on the availability and access to provisioning ecosystem services. On the other hand, the interviews and focus group discussions were conducted by the researchers using guides they developed. The FGDs were conducted with women groups and community leaders. During the interviews and FGDs, detailed notes were taken alongside tape-recording of the interviews with the permission of the participants. Thereafter the data were transcribed for analysis. In line with Braun and Clarke (2006), the responses from the interviews and focus group discussions were first transcribed. We then read the transcripts several times to identify recurring patterns within the data which were then categorised into themes. Thereafter, the themes were recategorised to reflect the research objectives after carefully reading and refining the initial themes. Finally, we selected vivid compelling extracts that reflect the objectives of the study and literature to write the paper (Braun and Clarke 2006).

Results

This section of the paper is segmented into three parts. The first part is dedicated to discussing the profile of research participation drawn from the sampled communities. In the second part, we discuss the perceptions of research participants regarding how urbanisation at the peripheries affects ecosystems and the associated services they provide to them. We examine farmer households’ access to provisioning ecosystem services under urbanisation pressures in the final part of the section.

Profile of research participants

Sociodemographic and economic status (sex occupation, marital status, age, and education) impacts the way research participants think and behave as well as determine their attitudes (e.g. towards urbanisation and its effects on their access to provisioning ecosystem services). In this part of the section, we examined the sociodemographic and economic variables, sex, age, education, marital status, and occupation of the research participants.

Most of the research participants were male (57.2%) while 68.5% of them were married. It is also observed from Table 2 that 27.8% of the respondents fall within the age group of 26–33 years old, while 21% of them were within the age bracket of 50 years and above. The distribution of the age group of the research participants has implications for their ability to adjust to the loss of provisioning ecosystem services because of the rapid environmental changes that were occurring in the communities. It is also observed that 38.8% of the research participants had no formal education while only a small fraction (16%) of them attained secondary education. Surprisingly, those who attained tertiary education were more than those who attained secondary education. This development has implications for livelihood diversification to cope with the loss of provisioning ecosystem services losses because of urbanisation. The findings of this study showed that most people will not be able to take advantage of opportunities that come with urbanisation to improve their living conditions through better jobs. The occupational distribution of the research participants showed that personal services provision (hairdressing, food vending, and tailoring) was the dominant endeavour, while farming came second as the primary source of livelihood for the people.

Table 2. Sociodemographic profile of research participants (N = 400).

Variable	Male	Female	Aggregate	Mean	Std Deviation
Sex/gender	229 (57.2%)	171 (42.8%)	400 (100%)	1.4275	0.49534
Age category
26–33	64 (27.9)	47 (27.5%)	111 (27.28%)	2.9450	1.38809
50+	48 (21.0%)	36 (21.1%)	84 (21.0%)
34–41	49 (21.4%)	34 (19.9%)	83 (20.8%)
18–25	32 (14.0%)	35 (20.5%)	67 (16.8%)
42–49	36 (15.7%)	19 (11.1%)	55 (13.8%)
Marital status
Married	151 (65.9%)	123 (71.9%)	274 (68.5%)	1.3150	0.46510
Single	78 (34.1%)	48 (28.1)	126 (31.5)
Educational attainment
No formal education	67 (29.3%)	88 (51.5%)	155 (38.8%)	2.1425	1.12711
Basic	69 (30.1%)	38 (22.2%)	107 (26.8)
Tertiary	52 (22.7%)	22 (12.9%)	74 (18.5%)
Secondary	41 (17.9%)	23 (13.5%)	64 (16.0%)
Primary occupation
Personal services	84 (36.7%)	53 (31.0%)	137 (34.3%)	2.9000	1.9050
Farming	86 (37.6%)	40 (23.4%)	126 (31.5%)
Petty trading	38 (16.6%)	66 (38.6%)	104 (26.0%)
Salary worker	21 (9.2%)	12 (7.0%)	33 (8.2%)

Perceptions of the effects of urbanization on provisioning ecosystem services

Perceptions are used to create our experience of the world around us and allow us to act appropriately within our environment. Research participants’ perceptions, therefore, provide us with the opportunity to understand their attributes, behaviours, and experiences of urbanisation at the peripheries and how that affects access to provisioning ecosystem services. As such, we examine the research participants’ perceptions about urbanisation at the peripheries and that impact on ecosystems and associated provisioning services.

As demonstrated in previous studies in the area, urbanisation has been occurring over the years and this is manifested in residential development which subsequently leads to a reduction in farmland sizes and other resources in the area. As shown in Table 3, more of the responses cited increased residential housing development as an indicator of urbanisation in the sampled communities. This was followed by reduced farmland sizes, changing mix of urban and rural activities, and increased social and economic infrastructure as the manifestation of urbanisation. It can be noticed that large proportions of the responses indicated that these features are the attributes of urbanisation and when undertaken in an unsustainable manner, degrade the natural habitat that housed ecosystems, jeopardising their ability to provide provisioning ecosystem services.

Table 3. Perceptions of the manifestations of urbanisation (N = 400).

Indicators of urbanisation	N	%
Increased residential housing development	380	95.0
Reduced farmlands	369	92.3
Changing mix of urban and rural activities	351	87.8
Increased social and economic infrastructure	279	69.8
Surface extension of the city to the communities	267	66.8
Land conversion	179	44.8

According to the findings, the urbanisation and subsequent encroachment of peri-urban lands are largely driven by the demand for land to meet their residential, economic, and social needs. In addition, interviews and FGDs revealed that the government’s compulsory acquisition of lands for the purpose of establishing educational institutions (SD Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies in Bamahu-Kompala and Dr Hilla Liman Technical University around the Nakori-Kpongu enclave) motivated private individuals to acquire lands in those areas to provide rental accommodation for students and staff of these institutions and business services. These together triggered the rapid conversion of peri-urban lands which served as the habitat for species, degrading them, and affecting their ability to provide free essential provisioning services to farmer households. As a Tindaana from Nakori intimated,

I think people choose to come and stay here partly and go to town to work or do other things because most people can now afford motorbikes and other cheaper means of transport such as tricycles which facilitate commuting to and from the urban core to undertake various activities. So, it has become easier to move from here to Wa town and back which means that no matter where you live you can easily access the city with little difficulty, and this motivates people to buy lands and build their houses in the peripheral communities. The building of houses and other infrastructure implies clearing the vegetation that accommodates ecosystems that provide wild fruits, and animals, vegetables among others to us. (Interview with a family head from Kompala 20^th June 2022)

The conditions for growing, collecting, hunting, or harvesting food, and obtaining domestic energy supply from fuel wood had been compromised.

Provisioning ecosystem services that were available to the communities included wild medicinal plants, fresh water, vegetables, fruits, honey, and firewood. This was reported by 98.5% of the research participants. As shown in Table 4, most of the respondents cited the availability of medicinal plants, vegetables, and wild fruits. The rest were honey, firewood, freshwater sources, and game as the services that could be obtained freely from nature a decade earlier. For instance, most (97.3%) of the research participants cited the disappearance of medicinal plants that were relied upon to provide effective treatment for many kinds of ailments. A similar trend could be observed for vegetables/spices, wild fruits, honey, fresh water, firewood, and game/hunting as disappearing from the communities and their environs although the proportions differ.

Table 4. Provisioning services available to farmer households in the past (N = 400).

Provisioning service	N	Percent
Medicinal plants	389	97.3
Vegetables/Spices	388	97.0
Wild fruits	375	93.8
Honey	370	92.5
Fresh water	356	89.0
Firewood	345	86.3
Game/hunting	344	86.0

However, the study observes that the free provisioning ecosystem services were no more available in the quantities that pertained a decade ago. The provisioning ecosystem services that have disappeared or were on the verge of disappearing were vegetables/spices, medicinal plants, game, fuel wood, and honey. This affected their supply for domestic consumption and the urban market. For example, most of the respondents cited vegetables/spices (84.3%), medicinal plants (59%), wild animals (52.5%), and honey (45%) as the critical provisioning ecosystem services that have come under pressure from urbanisation, leading to their near disappearance and the consequences that would befall the farmer households whose life depended on these services. A Tindaana intimate that.

The southern portion of the community was a forest with lots of trees, shrubs, grasses, and wild animals that we harvested for both household consumption and for the urban market. There were also beehives on the trees from which we harvested honey. In addition, medicinal plants were available. So, we did not have problems obtaining these resources for our needs. As you can see now, the trees have been cleared for housing construction, denying us the free resources we had at our disposal. (Interview with Tindaana from Nakori, 23^rd June 2022)

Along with urbanisation are human activities that cause the degradation of ecosystems. The degradation is occasioned by sand mining for housing and infrastructure development. This has led to the gradual disappearance of these services that the people depended on for a living. Also, the destruction of freshwater sources coupled with logging/clearing of vegetation (see Figure 2) that hosted wild fruits (e.g. shea nuts, mango, dawadawa etc.), beehives, wild animals, and medicinal plants/leaves contributed to the decline in ecosystem provisioning services that were available to the farmers. As a result of human activities through the conversion of arable land and wetlands, ecosystems that provided provisioning services to farmer households had degraded. A leader of a women’s group lamented that,

… . we could obtain vegetables such as ‘Ayoyo’, ‘Bre’and mushrooms just at the back of our house to prepare food for our families and for the market but all that is gone due to the clearing of the lands for housing. (Interview with women leader from Danko 24^th June 2022)

Figure 2. Causes of degradation of provisioning ecosystem services.

Thus, the clearing of trees and shrubs on the outskirts of the community led to the disappearance of free provisioning services that the people relied on to feed their families and to supply to the urban market. The findings, however, demonstrate that urbanisation per se is not the only driver of ecosystem degradation, but it is also because of logging, destruction of water bodies, climate change, and sand winning.

Urbanisation and farmer households’ access to provisioning ecosystem services

In this part of the section, we examine farmer households’ access to provisioning ecosystem services under urbanisation pressures and their views on the availability of these services in the next decade. This is because ecosystems provide invaluable services such as food, water, fruits, vegetables, and much more for the people. As this study has demonstrated so far, urbanisation and its associated human activities such as logging, climate change, and destruction of freshwater sources among others resulted in natural habitat loss, which decrease ecosystems and alter their capacity to provide provisioning services to farmers households. In view of this, farmer households’ access to ecosystem provisioning services is under threat. As the study has revealed, 98% of the research participants agreed that their access to provisioning ecosystem services had decreased over the last decade due to urbanisation and its consequent encroachment on lands that hitherto provided habitat for ecosystems that provided the critical needs of households.

The research participants’ perspectives were sought concerning how urbanisation affected access to provisioning ecosystem services (fresh water, firewood, wild fruits, game/hunting, medicinal plants, honey, and vegetables/spices). From the results (see Table 5), a large proportion of the respondents (37.3%) neither agreed nor disagreed that their access to fresh water had decreased because of the destruction of natural water sources – rivers and streams that they depended on in the past. This result is not surprising because it is only in Nakori that had a dugout that provided fresh water for domestic and construction purposes. The provision of boreholes and the recent connection of the city and its environs to the Jambusu Water Supply System in the Wa West District has alleviated the need to depend on natural water sources for domestic and construction purposes in the other communities.

Table 5. Research participants perspectives on access to ecosystem provisioning services.

Perspectives oncurrent access toprovisioning services	Strongly Disagree	Disagreed	Neither agreenor disagree	Agreed	Strongly Agreed	Mean	Std. Deviation
A	107 (26.8%)	70 (17.5%)	149 (37.3%)	70 (17.5%)	4 (1.0%)	2.4850	1.09443
B	3 (0.8%)	33 (8.3%)	151 (37.8%)	152 (38.0%)	61 (15.3%)	3.5875	0.87134
C	5 (1.3%)	31 (7.8%)	114 (28.5%)	172 (43.0%)	78 (19.5%)	3.7175	0.90816
D	8 (2.0%)	23 (5.8%)	115 (28.8%)	170 (42.5%)	84 (21.0%)	3.7475	0.91971
E	8 (2.0%)	26 (6.5%)	99 (24.8%)	147 (36.8%)	120 (30.0%)	3.8625	0.98540
F	2 (0.5%)	46 (11.5%)	105 (26.3%)	176 (44.0%)	71 (17.8%)	3.6700	0.91553
G	3 (0.8%)	32 (8.0%)	112 (28.0%)	150 (37.5%)	103 (25.8)	3.7950	0.94084
H	5 (1.3%)	29 (7.3%)	77 (19.3%)	194 (48.5%)	95 (23.8%)	3.8625	0.90312

Note: A (My access to fresh water has decreased over the last decade), B (My access to firewood/timber has decreased over the last decade), C (My access to wild fruit has decreased over the last decade), D (My access to game and hunting has decreased over the last decade), E (My access to medicinal plants has decreased over the last decade), F (My access to honey has decreased over the last decade), G (My access to vegetable has decreased over the last decade), and H (My access to spices has decreased over the last decade).

A large proportion (38.0%) of the research participants agreed with the claim that access to firewood had decreased over the last decade due to the logging/felling of trees that were hitherto harvested for domestic use and for the preparation of charcoal. The logging of trees such as shea, baobab, and other fuelwood denies the people the opportunity to freely obtain them for domestic energy supply. Similar scores were recorded across the board, with most (43.0%) of the respondents agreeing with the notion that access to wild fruits had reduced. A large proportion (42.5%) of the research participants also agree that access to game and hunting has decreased over the last decade, while the notion that the availability of medicinal plants has decreased over the last decade stood at 36.8%. In addition, the research participants agree with the notion that access to honey has decreased (44.0%) and that access to vegetables (37.5%) and spices (48.5%) over the last decade. A family head from Nakori corroborates the finding by stating that ‘we could find and hunt wild animals such as rabbits, antelopes, and others just behind our houses but now, they are not there anymore’.

The results (Table 5) showed that there had been a decline in the availability of these critical provisioning services that were a source of livelihood and medicine for the treatment of many kinds of ailments not only for the farmer households but also for the urban residents. It emerged from a group discussion with women in Nakori that the natural habitats have been destroyed due to urbanisation and adverse human activities, leading to the loss of ecosystems. For instance, a participant explained in a discussion stated that:

The absence of these free services (fruits, vegetables, honey, firewood, medicinal plants, etc.) adversely affected the people. Although orthodox medicine is available for the treatment of many ailments, local medicine made from herbs were more effective in treating some ailments and the disappearance of medicinal plants due to urbanisation pressures such as clearing of vegetation for housing construction is a worrying issue for the people. (A group discussion with women from Nakori 26^th June 2022)

Farmer households’ perspectives on the availability of these ecosystem provisioning services in the next decade were also sought. As shown in Table 6, 47.3% of the research participants neither agreed nor disagreed with the notion that access to fresh water will decrease in the next decade and nobody disagreed strongly with that opinion. As noted earlier, this response from the research participants is not surprising because two of the three communities do not have rivers or streams, so they depended on underground water supplies to meet their domestic and commercial uses. It is only in one community (Nakori) that a dugout exists to provide water for domestic and construction purposes. Also, most (56.5%) of the research participants neither agreed nor disagreed with the notion that access to firewood will decrease in the coming decade.

Table 6. Research participants perspectives on future access to ecosystem provisioning services.

Perspectives onfuture access toprovisioning services	Strongly Disagree	Disagreed	Neither agreenor disagree	Agreed	Strongly Agreed	Mean	Std. Deviation
A	57(14.3%)	38(9.5%)	189(47.3%)	85(21.3%)	31(7.8%)	4.2850	0.71066
B	8(2.0%)	66(16.5%)	226(56.5%)	100(25.0%)	0(0.0%)	4.2725	0.78727
C	0(0.0%)	0(0.0%)	91(22.8%)	167(41.8%)	142(35.5%)	4.1850	0.79521
D	0(0.0%)	5(1.3%)	49(12.3%)	194(48.5%)	152(38.0%)	4.2550	0.74253
E	0(0.0%)	0(0.0%)	72(18.0%)	154(38.5%)	174(43.5%)	4.2325	0.70689
F	0(0.0%)	12(3.0%)	60(15.0%)	170(4.5%)	158(39.5%)	4.1275	0.75343
G	4(1.0%)	4(1.0%)	48(12.0%)	167(41.8%)	177(44.3%)	4.0450	0.70300
H	0.0%)	4(1.0%)	48(12.0%)	178(44.5%)	170(42.5%)	2.9875	1.09102

Note: A (My access to fresh water will be decreased in the next decade), B (My access to firewood/timber will decrease in the next decade), C (My access to wild fruit will decrease in the next decade), D (My access to game and hunting will decrease in the next decade), E (My access to medicinal plants will decrease in the next decade), F (My access to honey will decrease in the next decade), G (My access to vegetables/mushroom will decrease in the next decade) and H (My access to spices will decrease in the next decade).

The research participants agreed with the assertion that access to the other provisioning services (wild fruits, game, medicinal plants, honey, vegetables, and spices) will reduce in the coming decade although the proportions agreeing with this statement varied. For instance, 41.8% of the research participants agreed that access to wild fruits will reduce in the coming decade, while 48.5% of them also accepted the claim that access to games will decrease in the next 10 years. In the case of medicinal plants and vegetable access, a large proportion of the research participants 43.5% and 44.3% respectively strongly agreed with the notion that access to them will reduce in the coming decade, while 42.5% and 44.5% of the research participants agreed that access to honey and spices will reduce respectively in the next decade. It could be surmised from the responses that issues of access to medicinal plants and vegetables in the future are of grave concern to the research participants.

Responses from the interviews and group discussions with the stakeholders corroborated the findings of the household survey in that most provisioning ecosystem services are expected to disappear in the next decade. This future disappearance is expected to occur because urbanisation is intensifying which will ultimately lead to the conversion of more peri-urban lands into residential and commercial uses and this has the potential to degrade the natural habitat and ecosystems that provide critical free services to the people. This assertion is predicated on the knowledge of the past and present characteristics of communities. As a Chief put it,

… … . If our grandfathers were brought back to life today, they will not recognize this community because of the transformation that has taken place. I am convinced that they will not be able to find their way to their homes. So, I don’t expect to obtain these services (shea trees, fruits, mushrooms, vegetables, etc.) as we did in the past. Even now, you can see that we don’t get much of them as compared to the past. (Interview with a chief 28^th June 2022)

The quotation illustrates that as urbanisation intensifies, the conversion of peri-urban lands for housing, agricultural and commercial purposes will also increase, leading to the loss of the natural habitats that contain ecosystems.

Discussion

Urbanisation is a major threat to nature worldwide because it is a pathway for the loss, degradation, and fragmentation of biodiversity and alteration of ecosystems. Nowhere is the adverse impact of urbanisation on ecosystems felt more than in peripheral areas in developing countries which have become enclaves of rapid land conversion. To some extent, the findings of the study resonate with the views expressed by previous studies (Du Toit et al. 2018) that human activities that accompany urbanisation contribute to the removal of natural habitats in the peripheral areas. The consequence of this development is the loss of food and livelihood (Ashiagbor et al. 2019; Feng et al., 2021). This also dovetails into the findings of Feng et al. (2021) and Pratiwi et al. (2022) that underscore the view that rapid land conversion associated with urbanisation at the peripheries is upsetting the natural service flow, distressing the ecosystems, and disabling them from providing the needed provisioning services to farmer households in peri-urban areas in developing countries. The findings, however, reveal that urbanisation at the peripheries also engendered sand mining, destruction of water bodies, changing cultural beliefs, and climate change that together contribute to the destruction of natural habitats that accommodate ecosystems, leading to provisioning ecosystem services loss in the area. In line with this, Kronenberg (2014) had earlier drawn our attention to the dangers associated with disturbing ecosystems by arguing that it can trigger unintended disruption throughout an ecosystem services supply chain, with grave environmental, social, and economic consequences.

The degradation of the ecosystems has led to the reduction of households’ access to provisioning services. As the study has shown, many of the research participants acknowledge that their access to provisioning services has reduced over the last decade. The findings manifested in most of the research participants agreeing with claims that their access to vegetables, medicinal plants, and fuelwood has declined in the last ten years. However, the work of Shao et al. (2021) demonstrates that provisioning ecosystem services (food, water, plants, wild fruits, spices, and animals) is central to meeting food needs and sustaining livelihoods, especially in peri-urban areas in African cities. The decline in access to these services means the loss of not only vital basic human needs but forage for livestock production (Dhyani and Dhyani 2016, Feng et al., 2021; Haase 2021; Pratiwi et al. 2022). The consequence will be that farmer households now have to depend on the urban market to obtain these products. But this may become challenging to some of them, for example, those living in poverty, since they may not be able to afford to meet their household food requirement. Apart from that, those who traded in provisioning ecosystem services in the urban market to earn a living may lose out on an important source of income which may invariably push them into poverty if alternative livelihoods are not adopted.

The study also unravels that if the current trend of urbanisation and exploitation of the natural habitat continues, the little that is left of the provisioning ecosystem services will slump into extinction. This is because most of the research participants agree with the notion that their access to medicinal plants, vegetables, honey, and spices will reduce in the next decade. Therefore, the changes; in land conversion, sand winning, destruction of water bodies, logging/vegetation clearing, and the projection that the urban population will increase (Chakraborty et al. 2019) suggests that such activities will intensify in the coming decades putting farmer households in trouble of accessing provisioning ecosystem services for food and livelihoods to subsist if alternative means of living are not quickly adopted. For fuelwood, however, it appears that access to it would not be a challenge to the farmers in the next decade and this is quite curious given that they expect urbanisation and other human activities to intensify going forward. This could be explained by the fact that fuelwood could be obtained in the urban market, or nearby communities or they could be a shift to alternative energy sources such as LPG to meet their household requirements. But again, only those who can afford will in the future resort to the use of LGP to meet their domestic energy needs.

The range of risks for urban provisioning ecosystem services explored in this article clearly demonstrates the complexity of the challenge peripheral areas in African cities are facing in the 21^st century in the context of urbanisation, land use change, and population expansion. As urbanisation intensifies due to the rapid growth of the human population, pressure on natural resources (land, water, soil, trees, shrubs, etc.), and urban infrastructure (housing and transport) will increase (Abdulai et al. 2022; Finn and Cobbinah 2023), but the capacity of city planning authorities to address the risks through innovation, and participatory decision-making does not match up, especially in the sub-Saharan African context (Adedire 2018; Du Toit et al. 2018; Kioko et al. 2022; Finn and Cobbinah 2023). This is because urban development in Ghana and in most sub-Saharan Africa often preceded urban planning, creating obstacles to conserving ecosystems that could provide critical services for human sustenance.

Conclusion and implications for policy and sustainable urbanisation

This study set out to examine farmer households’ perceptions of access to ecosystem provisioning services in peri-urban Ghana amid urbanisation pressures. Although urbanisation at the peripheries has contributed to the degradation of ecosystems through the development of urban infrastructure, the current study contributes to the literature by shedding light on the specific pressures; sand mining, destruction of water bodies, changing cultural beliefs, and climate change that contribute to the loss of natural habitat in the peri-urban areas. Yet, the natural habitats provided the avenue for ecosystems to flourish and to provide the needed provisioning services for the people, especially farmer households who depended on them for their food and livelihoods. The consequence of the degradation of natural habitats and for that matter ecosystems is a disruption in the supply of and access to provisioning ecosystem services. The study demonstrates that these services provided food and livelihood sources to peri-urban farmer households, which reinforces the direct contribution of natural resources to the sustenance of human existence. Clearly, the availability of provisioning ecosystem services to peripheral farmer households is not guaranteed in the future as urbanisation and other human activities intensify because of the potential to degrade the existing ecosystems.

The way forward can be found in, first, peri-urban communities considering and enacting bylaws to curb sand winning and protection of water sources. In the case of sand winning, sand winners should be required to restore degraded lands through landfilling after they have excavated the soil. For water bodies (streams), communities should plant trees at the banks of streams and monitor the activities of sand winners and other people to ensure that the activities do not adversely affect them. This can be achieved through the formation of watchdog committees to enforce the bylaws. Secondly, in their quest to have access to fuelwood to meet domestic energy needs, landowning families should ensure that portions are allotted for woodlots for small scale production of fuelwood, indigenous plants, vegetables, and tree species for domestic consumption and urban market. Finally, the Wa Municipal Assembly and Non-governmental organisations working in the area of rural livelihoods should train those who traded in provisioning ecosystem services on alternative livelihood skills such as agrifood processing that they can depend on to make a living. These steps when taken together, we can build our cities, while ensuring that the natural environment continues to supply its free services to the people for their sustenance. We acknowledge that the study did not establish a direct link between urbanisation and ecosystem loss, degradation, and fragmentation using rigorous statistical analysis. In this light, further studies should deploy rigorous statistical analysis to establish the link between urbanisation and ecosystem loss. Such studies should also be broadened to include regulation and maintenance and cultural services.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ibrahim Abu Abdulai

Ibrahim Abu Abdulai holds a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the University of Cape Coast in Ghana. He has published in high-impact journals such as Heliyon, Local Environment, SN Social Sciences, and Journal of Urban Affairs among others. His research interest centers on urban agriculture, urban sustainability, and climate change.

Issaka Kanton Osumanu

Issaka Kanton Osumanu is an associate professor of Geography. He specializes in geography. He has published in top-tier journals such as Land Use Policy, Urban Forum, and Habitat International among others.

Notes

1. Farmer households are indigenous smallholder subsistence farmers that have always lived and farmed in the community.

2. Indigenous households are those that have always lived in the communities.

3. Tindamba (Tindana for singular) in Northern Ghana are purported to be the owners of the land by virtue of first settlement or conquest and the ones who knew or are known by the earth spirits.