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Population growth, economic development, and rural migration to urban areas have caused rapid expansion of urban centres in Ghana. One reason is that spatial planning and in particular urban planning face different social, economic and political challenges which hinder a structured and planned urban development, therefore causing urban sprawl. We hypothesise that different peri-urban patterns are driven by geographical, historical, cultural and economic discrepancies between southern and northern Ghana, and reflect the effectiveness of land use planning instruments. We tested our hypothesis by comparing patterns of urban development in two case study regions: Takoradi in southern Ghana and Bolgatanga in northern Ghana, representing an economically vibrant and a non-vibrant region, respectively. This paper provides new insights for the study sites based on a mixed-method approach. We applied an interdisciplinary approach combining expert interviews, a literature review, and a bi-temporal change analysis based on remote sensing/geo-information systems. We assigned confidence levels of the findings from the respective methods based on their plausibility and sensitivity. Expert opinion indicated that land use planning fails due to the lack of implementation of legal regulations, to the customary land tenure and lack of participation of local citizens in the planning process. The remote sensing analysis revealed that urban development was stronger in Takoradi (7.1% increase between 2007 and 2013) than in Bolgatanga (1.1% increase between 2007 and 2013). Urban development patterns differ with a dominance of small-scale scattered settlement units (SUs) in Bolgatanga and a mixture of small- and large-scale SUs in Takoradi. Besides population growth, markets and industry are identified as major drivers of urban development in the Takoradi area (large SUs) and customary land tenure in the Bolgatanga area (small ...

AbstractThis paper is a communication from the corresponding symposium at the Global Land Project Open Science Meeting, Berlin, March 2014. We explored the assumption that the ecosystem services-(ES) concept has the potential to support communication and collaboration between actors in land use planning. If true, the concept could facilitate collaborative planning processes. We analyse how to evolve a planning context in which governance networks at the local landscape level gain importance in decision making, while the central government delegates power. From case studies presented during the symposium we learned that the ES-concept has been explored for application in local land use planning around the world. However, whether ES are recognized as a useful planning concept depends on individual actor preferences and cultural and contextual factors, such as the actual nature-human relationship and gender differences. Also, successful application requires the support of novel assessment, design and visualization tools, which are designed to foster collaboration and social learning. The potential of the concept to contribute to collaborative relationships needs further investigation.

Despite a growing number of national-scale ecosystem service (ES) assessments, few studies consider the impacts of ES use and consumption beyond national or regional boundaries. Interregional ES flows – ecosystem services "imported" from and "exported" to other countries – are rarely analyzed and their importance for global sustainability is little known. Here, we provide a first multi-ES quantification of a nation's use of ES from abroad. We focus on ES flows that benefit the population in Germany but are supplied outside German territory. We employ a conceptual framework recently developed to systematically quantify interregional ES flows. We address four types of interregional ES flows with: (i) biophysical flows of traded goods: cocoa import for consumption; (ii) flows mediated by migratory species: migration of birds providing pest control; (iii) passive biophysical flows: flood control along transboundary watersheds; and (iv) information flows: China's giant panda loan to the Berlin Zoo. We determined that: (i) Ivory Coast and Ghana alone supply around 53% of Germany's cocoa while major negative consequences for biodiversity occurred in Cameroon and Ecuador; (ii) Africa´s humid and sub-humid climate zones are important habitats for the majority of migratory bird species that provide natural pest control services in agricultural areas in Germany; (iii) Upstream watersheds outside the country add an additional 64% flood regulation services nationally, while Germany exports 40% of flood regulation services in neighboring, downstream countries; (iv) Information flows transported by the pandas were mainly related to political aspects and - contrary to our expectations - considerably less on biological and natural aspects. We discuss the implications of these results for international resource management policy and governance.

As part of a 'fitness check' evaluation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), completed in autumn 2017, we conducted an in depth literature review to evaluate both direct and indirect effects of the CAP on biodiversity (BD) and ecosystem services (ESS). Beyond instruments that are designated towards the protection of BD and ESS, such as agri-environment(-climate) schemes (AECM), greening, and cross compliance (CC), we considered and evaluated non-designated instruments such as Direct Payments, that likely have indirect effects on BD and ESS by affecting land-use changes, farm structure and management. Although literature suggests that AECM can be locally effective (1), their effectiveness at the EU level remains limited due to a restricted budget and extent, low uptake and acceptance by farmers, lack of spatial design, and poor implementation in many cases. Greening measures are both ineffective and cost-inefficient since most farmers are either exempt or can comply with the greening requirements without any action (2). Additionally, administrative requirements bias farmers toward choosing the simplest and least effective measures (3) and management requirements and spatial design are lacking. With respect to supporting farming systems that can be considered as sustainable, our review indicates that the CAP offers adequate support to promote organic farming, but much greater support is given to unsustainable farming systems. Moreover, the protection of High Nature Value farming systems is scarce and inadequate. Concerning ESS, current measures (AECM, CC) are somewhat effective with respect to soil protection and water quality but the performance of the CAP is very low with regard to climate issues by failing to address the most important sources of greenhouse-gas emissions, namely livestock production and nitrogen fertilization. Overall, the CAP's design and implementation poorly takes up existing knowledge and experience with respect to necessary interventions and best indicators, and its various instruments operate with little coherence (e.g. AECM and organic farming) or even in conflict (e.g. AECM and greening). Moreover, the CAP only marginally addresses the EU's global ecological footprint and its contribution to land-use changes outside of Europe. Thus, the global efficiency and effectiveness of the CAP in terms of BD and ESS remains weak. Our literature review indicates the availability of a wealth of evidence to inform current and future policy design processes. Integration of all available knowledge, in collaboration with the scientific community, will be essential for achieving higher effectiveness, efficiency, and coherence within instruments and among the CAP and the EU's biodiversity strategy. A much more inclusive, transparent and evidence-based process will be necessary if the European Commission wishes to address the concerns over the CAP's performance with respect to public goods. ; peerReviewed