Assessing Food Security in the Southern Part of Ghana Using Normalize Difference Vegetation Index

Peter Ekow Baffoe

Abstract


Food security plays a very important role in urban planning. It has become a problem in the developing world due to population growth and infrastructural development. There is therefore also decrease in the natural conditions supporting vegetation growth such as rainfall, good weather conditions and others. In this study the food security of an urban zone in Ghana was assessed by using Landsat images of 1991, 2003 and 2017 in order to help planning the main zone in the cities. The lowest and the highest NDVI values of the years of study were determined. A priori defined four land cover classes in the classification scheme identified were built-up areas, farm lands, thin forest and thick forests. It was observed that the farmlands increased from 9% in 1991 to 23% in 2003 and to 28% in 2017. This brought to light that, there has been an improvement in food production. However, it was observed that, there was a decrease in the forest reserves and also the conditions that supported vegetation growth such as rainfall and favourable weather conditions decreased by 4% and 14% in 2003 and 2017 respectively when compared to 1991. Although the security of food is quite stable currently, it was concluded that, if nothing is done about the rate at which the forest is destroyed, there would be food insufficiency in the future. It was recommended that measures should be put in place to reduce the rate at which the various forests cover are being destroyed and an afforestation plans should be embarked upon.


Keywords


Food insecurity, Normalise, Vegetation, Index, Forest

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References


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