Expert calls for spatial planning

Page 43 (lead) September 11/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

A remote sensing expert, Dr Amamoo Otchere, has warned of more serious ecological problems along the country’s coastlines if urgent measures are not taken against the effects of global warming.
Sharing his views on the rising tidal waves along some of the country’s coastal towns, Dr Otchere said the rise in global temperatures had caused the icy mountains in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans to thaw, resulting in the rise of sea levels and more activities along the coasts.
As a first step, he said, the government ought to set up a commission of experts to undertake a comprehensive spatial planning of the country.
He expressed regret that since the colonial governor Gordon Guggisberg effected a spatial planning for the country in the 1920s, there had not been any other effort to structure the methods by which the public sector was to influence the distribution of people and activities in spaces of various scales including land use such as for urban planning, regional planning, or environmental planning for the country.
“Instead we are destroying what has been preserved for us since that time. We need not sit down for things to get out of hand before we take action because it will be too costly and perhaps too late for anything meaningful to be done,” he advised in an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic.
Keta and its surrounding villages in the Volta Region, Ada in the Greater Accra Region and some parts of the Central and Western regions, which constitute the coastal belt of the country, are experiencing massive sea erosions.
It has been estimated that the country loses about 1.2 centimetres of land to the sea every month.
Consequently, he advocated the construction of break walls into the sea at areas where the erosion was fast taking place, instead of sea defence walls, to reduce the pressure of the waves and its impact on land.
He said apart from the fact that the break walls were cheaper compared to the defence walls, they are also more durable and could withstand the test of time.
Making reference to the events in some parts of the United States of America (USA) such as Louisiana and Florida among others, he said the coastal countries were in for trouble and said it was time for those who doubt the impact of climate change and global warming to rethink and do what was environmentally right to save the earth.
Dr Amamoo Otchere called on the authorities to ensure that any planning to be undertaken would involve the local people to make them appreciate what was to be done for them to preserve the environment in a better way.
Dr Francis K. E. Nunoo, a Senior Lecturer of the Department of Oceanography and Fisheries has on his part called for a shoreline management plan as a one of the measures to deal with the incidence of tidal waves in the coastal areas, Caroline Boateng reports.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic, he said the occurrence of tidal waves was not new, what was disturbing was the incidence of it and that could also be linked with global climatic changes.
He said the country’s coastal line had to be broken down into smaller units with management plans that had to fit into a national coastal management plan.
“Planning for coastal areas and zones need to be improved,” he said.
While conceding that through governmental agencies, several workshops had been done in this area, he said implementation of actions to ensure good management was what was lacking.
Also lacking was the institutionalisation of early warning systems to warn people of impending danger.
He said this meant enabling agencies like the Ghana Meteorological Agency and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) to actively engage people at the community levels on dangers and possible disasters.
He said that could be achieve by resourcing them and the appropriate legal framework.
He added that it was not the practice for such agencies to engage the public on such issues and they had to be empowered to do so.
Dr Nunoo also reiterated calls by other experts for a national communication strategy on climate change to clearly spell out the country’s initiatives on the matter.
“Climate change has come to stay,” he stated, adding that it was therefore in the interest of the state and all other parties to create awareness, sensitise and work together to lessen the effects of the phenomenon on the country and its people.
Finally, Dr Nunoo asked all to be conscious of their energy consuming habits and change to energy saving devices, and car pooling to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide discharges into the atmosphere.