| Title |
Impacts of Surface Gold Mining on Land use Systems in Western Ghana
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Ambio, March 2011
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s13280-011-0141-9 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Vivian Schueler, Tobias Kuemmerle, Hilmar Schröder |
| Abstract |
Land use conflicts are becoming increasingly apparent from local to global scales. Surface gold mining is an extreme source of such a conflict, but mining impacts on local livelihoods often remain unclear. Our goal here was to assess land cover change due to gold surface mining in Western Ghana, one of the world's leading gold mining regions, and to study how these changes affected land use systems. We used Landsat satellite images from 1986-2002 to map land cover change and field interviews with farmers to understand the livelihood implications of mining-related land cover change. Our results showed that surface mining resulted in deforestation (58%), a substantial loss of farmland (45%) within mining concessions, and widespread spill-over effects as relocated farmers expand farmland into forests. This points to rapidly eroding livelihood foundations, suggesting that the environmental and social costs of Ghana's gold boom may be much higher than previously thought. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profile of 1 X user who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Costa Rica | 1 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 1 | 100% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 465 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 3 | <1% |
| Ghana | 2 | <1% |
| South Africa | 1 | <1% |
| Australia | 1 | <1% |
| Puerto Rico | 1 | <1% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | <1% |
| Unknown | 456 | 98% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Master | 106 | 23% |
| Student > Bachelor | 59 | 13% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 57 | 12% |
| Researcher | 46 | 10% |
| Student > Postgraduate | 25 | 5% |
| Other | 66 | 14% |
| Unknown | 106 | 23% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Environmental Science | 115 | 25% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 47 | 10% |
| Social Sciences | 44 | 9% |
| Engineering | 34 | 7% |
| Earth and Planetary Sciences | 25 | 5% |
| Other | 76 | 16% |
| Unknown | 124 | 27% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 16. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 23 January 2020.
All research outputs
#2,313,809
of 25,837,817 outputs
Outputs from Ambio
#413
of 1,954 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#10,285
of 129,999 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Ambio
#4
of 17 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,837,817 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,954 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 16.2. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 17 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 76% of its contemporaries.