Institutions, Groundwater Resources and Climate Change Adaptation in Northern Ghana

Climate change and its impacts are evident both globally and locally, manifesting in every sphere of life including natural resources. The African continent is considered the most vulnerable to these impacts while Ghana was ranked the 59th most vulnerable country to climate change in the world in 2014. Studies about groundwater resources under climate change point to some already occurred impacts with more anticipated. It is noted that climate change will exacerbate water stressing situations in Ghana as groundwater resources will be negatively affected. For instance, future scenarios indicate a general reduction in groundwater recharge of 5-22 % for 2020 and 30-40% for 2050. Already, the northern part of the country where most of the population depends on groundwater is noted for fallen groundwater tables. Therefore, in order to address these impacts in Africa, the role of institutions in promoting adaptation has been identified as one of the strategies. It is realised that institutions shape the nature of the impact of climate change, influence the way communities respond to climate change and serve as the intermediaries for external support. A glean of institutions in Ghana shows a plethora of them that are directly or indirectly regulating activities relating to water resources in the face of climate change. The thesis, therefore, looks at the nature of these institutions (state/formal) and their roles in promoting groundwater adaptation to climate change. In order to understand in detail the “how” and “why” of adaptation in relation to groundwater resources and also have a multi-perspective discussion that considers the voices of all relevant groups of actors together with their interactions in promoting groundwater resources adaptation, the study adopted a qualitative approach and made the Atankwidi catchment a case study area. Using triangulation, data were drawn from both primary (community/office interactions) and secondary sources and augmented by analyses of policy documents. The results of the study revealed that at both the national and sub-national levels, there is a multiplicity of state formal institutions in the form of laws, policies and administration even though there is currently no legislation designed in Ghana that focuses specifically on climate change adaptation. Focusing on the themes of groundwater adaptation, managing groundwater demand for domestic purposes appear to be receiving greater attention while storage, discharge and recharge need improvement. Like the Inuit in the Canadian Arctic, groundwater farmers of Atankwidi based on local knowledge have identified methods of adapting to the impacts of climate change on groundwater in the form of deepening wells, changing crop types, conjunctively using both surface and groundwater water and migrating to other places. Nonetheless, this local knowledge for promoting adaptation is limited. Therefore, formal institutions can enhance the scope of this knowledge by first of all recognising and documenting this knowledge as part of adaption efforts. Additionally, these institutions should educate and update local knowledge holders about some scientific methods of groundwater adaptation. This will create a new form of knowledge which is integrated and comprehensive enough to function independently to promote adaptation. Associated with this, farmers should be guided in adopting artificial methods of groundwater recharge that are anchored on local knowledge to boost groundwater availability. Inspired by the achievements of some existing artificial groundwater recharge methods in same northern Ghana, the thesis identified that the adoption of Managed Aquifer Recharge methods such as a subsurface dam in Atankwidi is feasible. This is premised on the fact that apart from the geophysical parameters of the catchment, it is realised that the institutional environment (both formal and informal) and the existence of local materials coupled with local knowledge support the construction and management of a subsurface dam. The thesis concluded that artificial recharge will contribute to promoting adaptation since natural recharge may be negatively affected over time due to the nature of rainfall pattern caused by climate change coupled with increasing population growth and booming groundwater dry season irrigation.:1. General background 2. Review of the existing literature 3. General research design/methodology 4. Background issues of climate change in Atankwidi catchment 5. Formal institutions and groundwater adaptation to climate change 6. Assessing institutions’ performance for adaptation 7. Local knowledge for groundwater irrigation 8. Feasibility of managed aquifer recharge to augment groundwater availability 9. General conclusions and recommendations 10. References APPENDICES

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