Future Food Framework (F3) – Modelling Geospatial Inputs For Monitoring Urban Changes And Food Security In Ghana- A Case Study Of Adentan Municipality

Contemporary urban literature reveals the multi-dimensional character of cities, from spatial reflective analysis of the urban landscape to its evolving human interactive changes. Hence, the narrative for urban monitoring requires great attention. Unfortunately, the spatio-temporal visibility of urban changes have been less attractive, perhaps due to the unnoticed connection of its evolving patterns. Furthermore, the urban phenomenon has been centered on a unilateral approach of observing its manifestation at particular times with less attention given to its factors of complexities. This makes it erroneously difficult to significantly trace, track and transfer urban change information for policy guidance and effective decision-making. Urban change complexities transforms food security patterns in cities and has raised concerns across the globe, although its indicative multidimensionality within the local context is less discussed. Food security in Ghana has been limited to availability, with less attention given to other metrics particularly food access and equity. As urban growth intensifies, food access disparities enlarge compromising equal access. The consistent urban struggle in Ghana’s sub-urban cities, validates this opinion- where a polar distribution of this urban commodity exist. Premised on this, the Adenta municipality is contextualized to explore the challenge of urban food systems of a so-called food secured state as well as address the overlooked inequality hints that exist in the urban food sub-sector. With a multi-criteria approach, geographic information systems (GIS) allowed for land use land cover changes, urban growth and density (as urban change indicators) to be synced with urban food access indicators, i.e., economic access, physical access and social access. Additionally, social vulnerability indexing coupled with resilient indicators were joined with spatial analytical tools to investigate the levels and rates of food accessibilities within the stream of modern cities. Attempts to address potential threats of the urban presence of food gaps were done by assigning weights of ranks to better model and analyze food trends. The urban food stress index was used, indicating general threats of food insecurities within the municipality but more pronounced among residents in Koose and Gbentanaa electoral area. It further exposed the level of vulnerability to food access among urban groups in the country due to their poor economic access. The result of urban change revealed a growing transformation, especially for the built up areas – rising from 245.85 sq.km (representing 26.5 %) to 416.94 sq.km (representing 44.91 %) between 1991 and 2018. This has had an inverse relationship on food access in the municipality. The study discovered that whereas urban changes were increasing at a fast rate of about 0.4 %, food access reduced significantly with an average rate of 0.3 %. A model based on the multi-criteria and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) facilitated future predictions whereby a trend of risks on urban food in the next 7 years was forecasted. The study finally recommended that urban change monitoring and geospatial input modelling must be embraced across professional, academic and institutional disciplines towards effective urban planning and decision making for emerging complex cities.

Source: KNUST