A fifty-year study of land cover changes in Ghana’s south-eastern region is conducted to identify major shifts and new avenues for justifiable growth and development. A combination of early studies and geospatial technology was adapted to analyse the data. Our study investigated the relationship between some given variables using autocorrelation and geoinformatics. Socio-political and economic factors have caused a massive shift in the land cover through growth in human settlements, migration, the extensiveness of agriculture, poverty, unregulated and unreported logging of trees, small-scale mining intensification, and weak governance systems. We discovered that the natural vegetation had dramatically reduced (-52.01%), whilst built-up (+ 406.05%), farmlands/shrubs (+ 86.47%), and waterbodies (+ 47.35) were faced with a drastic increase. Class contribution rates show built environment massively influenced land modification, compared to other surveyed classes. In light of the major influences observed, it can be concluded that dynamics in land-use systems caused a substantial drift in local temperature. Temperature and built-up index correlated strongly (R2 = 0.959, p < .0001), whilst depicting a negative association against vegetation (R2 = 0.959, p < .0001) and water-index (R2 = 0.958, p < .0001). Variance assessment proved that the linear correlation model for the understudied elements is appropriate. The study provides policy guidance and basic research support to key proponents and practitioners in addressing undesirable consequences, caused by urbanization, public behaviour or lifestyles, and institutional failures.