Drivers Undermining Green Space Security in Sunyani Municipality, Ghana

Green spaces provide essential ecosystem services, including climate regulation, food production and recreation for urban and peri-urban dwellers and the environment. However, green space security has become a serious spatial planning and development challenge, especially in the global South. Evidence suggests a continuous decline in land coverage of green spaces due to a multiplicity of context drivers. This study aims to understand the drivers influencing changes to green spaces in Sunyani Municipality of Ghana. It combined community members’ survey and spatial and institutional interview data to answer two objectives. First, it demonstrates the extent of changes to green spaces between 2003 and 2023, and second, it identifies the key drivers that have influenced the changes to green spaces within the period. Among others, dense vegetation and arable land have declined from 89.6 km ² to 84.7 km ² and 170 km ² to 106 km ^2, respectively, whereas the built-up area has increased from 21.6 km ² to 61.3 km ^2, . Commodification of land, institutional complicity, and poor appreciation of the benefits of green spaces are key drivers behind the changes. Public education and enforcement of regulations on spatial planning are necessary to safeguard the security of green spaces in the study area.