Demographic Characteristics of Population With Anity for Wetland Settlements in Ghana.

Wetlands all over Africa are being unsustainably reclaimed due mostly to high rate of population growth, urbanization and rising poverty. Despite having numerous ecosystem services that are of great benet to humanity, wetlands are among the most threatened ecosystems due to destructive anthropogenic activities. However in order to sustainably use and manage wetlands in Africa, more data must be made available for policy formulation and decision-making. Africa lacks sucient, basic and accurate data on population demographics that have anity to wetland settlement. Research is needed to provide this scientic basis in Africa. This study investigates the demographic characteristics of the population with anity to wetland settlements in Ghana to also contribute in lling in the gap identied by the National Environmental Action Plan of Ghana. The questionnaire survey approach was used with a sample size of 318 residents along two rivers in Kumasi. The demographic information that characterizes wetland settlers as revealed by this study include, low incomes, high rate of unemployment and poverty and low patronization of formal education. The high percentage of those with Senior High School certicates holders at the wetlands was also alarming. The settlers were mostly young and active. However, it was also found that data on the gender, ethnicity and religion of wetland settlers must be better determined at individual localities.

construction materials. In fact, many of the world's urban cities are built along rivers and their wetlands (Kingsford et al., 2016) and many local communities in almost all parts of the world depend on the wetlands for their many functional services (Morrison et al., 2013;van Dam et. al., 2011;Ozesmi and Bauer, 2002). However, increasing population has resulted in extensive wetland reclamation for agriculture and urban construction and expansion activities (Wang and Ma, 2016). Other human activities that negatively affect wetlands include airborne particulate fallouts (Lomnicky et al., 2019), construction of ood control systems including levees, dams and wells (Fretwell et al., 1996), and water management and land drainage projects (Dahl et al., 1991). Wetland functions can be overwhelmed in areas of heavy human activities (Mitsch and Gosselink, 2000) and since these activities have always exploited the productivity of wetlands, their overexploitation has become an increasing problem (Stone, 2003). Wetlands are under increasing threat (Mafabi, 2000;Owino and Ryan, 2007) and despite their importance, globally they are shrinking at a rate faster than other ecosystems, especially in developing countries (Nicholls, 2004)  asserts that about 70% of the world's wetlands is already destroyed or impaired and based on existing data in several regions, Davidson (2014) also asserts that not only is 87% of the world's wetlands degraded since 1700 but also these degradations occurred mostly in the 20th and early 21st centuries.
Since wetlands are among the world's most important productive ecosystems (Zedler and Kercher, 2005; Wang and Ma, 2016) and the human bene ts that accrue from maintaining them greatly outweighs converting them to other land uses such as agriculture (Maclean, et al., 2011;Schuyt, 2005), they must be protected or be used sustainably (Sabic et al., 2013) at worse. Considering the current rate of wetland depletion, especially in Africa (Quevauviller, 2009), there is the need to provide sound policies, structures and guidelines to aid its protection, management, conservation and sustainable use. Many African countries are signing the Ramsar Convention, which also indicates a growing interest and commitment to sustainable wetland management (Schuijt, 2002). However, the future of wetlands in Africa lies in the hands of sound policies (Kabii, 1996). Many tropical countries still require national wetland policies and structures to enforce their protection and sustainable management (Junk, 2002). For e cient protection of wetlands, there must be provision of data to bridge science and policy (Cools et al., 2013). There is insu cient data for policy-decision makers in wetland management (Martinez-Harms et al., 2015;Foster et al., 2015). Laws, statutes and policies for the determination, delineation, regulation, restoration, acquisition, incentives and disincentives and permits to use wetlands must be backed by scienti c data (Kent, 2000). The need for data and information to support wetland management is multi-scalar: global, regional, national, local to guide policy formulation and decision making (Finlayson and Spiers, 1999). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment also underscores the importance of the availability of a comprehensive information base for the understanding of the status and trends, values and major drivers of change of wetlands (Finlayson, et al., 2005;Wetlands International, 2005). Though the challenges with regard to the provision of data and information for understanding wetlands prevail on all continents (Cools et al., 2013), the scarcity is worse in much of the developing world where encroachment and degradation proceed at an unprecedented rate (Quevauviller, 2009). This paper contributes to the provision of data for policy-decision making to facilitate sustainable wetland management in Ghana (Anderson, 1998) by investigating the demographic characteristics of the population with the a nity for wetland settlement in the country.

Characteristics of Population with A nity for Wetland Settlement
A major reason given by Schuijt (2002) for the reclamation and use of wetlands in developing countries is the rising poverty, since many who settle on wetlands are from poor areas (Sabic et al., 2013). In eld (1988), Newmark et al. (1993) and McGregor (1995) are also of the view that poorer people are more dependent on natural products such as wetlands. For Badola (1997), it is part of the tradition and culture of people of lower socio-economic strata to use natural resources such as wetlands. In other words, mostly, the economically marginalized depend on wetland resources for their livelihood (Ozesmi, 1999) since they are mostly unskilled or unquali ed workers (Sabic, 2013). The poorer status of those who have a nity for wetland settlement is re ected in the higher unemployment rates (Foziah, 2009;Ozesmi, 1999;Tyler, 2011) and low paid jobs (Tyler, 2011;Pattison et. al., 2011) prevalent at these settlements. These jobs are mostly in the primary sector including shing, grazing, reed harvesting (Ozesmi and Bauer, 2002), agriculture and labor-class works (Foziah, 2009) and temporary service-based employment (Tyler, 2011). Wetland settlers are mostly part of the local population who depend on the nearby wetland for food and other services (Morrison et al., 2013;Ozesmi and Bauer, 2002), and who usually have lower educational background since literate population has lower dependency on wetland resources (Foziah, 2009). Those who reside at wetlands are mostly young and active (Tyler, 2011).

Wetlands in Ghana
Wetlands constitute about 10% of the Ghana's total land surface, comprising marine/coastal, inland, and man-made systems (Ministry of Lands and Forestry 1999). Until recently, wetlands were considered as "waste lands" and breeding grounds for mosquitoes in Ghana. As such, they were dredged to facilitate water drainage, reclaimed for socio-economic activities and used as dumping grounds for wastes. However, the Ministry of Lands and Forestry Ghana (MLFG) in June 1999 launched the National Land Policy which precluded practices such as physical draining of wetland water, the draining of water courses of wetlands and unapproved human settlements and anthropogenic activities on wetlands (Republic of Ghana, 1999). Moreover, since 1971, when the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Convention, 1971) came into force, more interests have been shown in Ghana about wetlands. In the early 199Os, the National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP) of Ghana was launched by the then Environmental Protection Council (EPC). The program, which was sponsored by the World Bank and the United Nations Environment Program was to concentrate on areas of environmental concern to the government and people of Ghana

Study Area
Kumasi was chosen for the research, not only because of its many rivers and streams in its urban and forest environment, but year. The average temperature is 26 0 C, the average humidity is 85% and total annual precipitation is about 1,684.7mm (World Weather, 2019). As con rmed by GSS (2014), the city is enriched with a number of major wetlands, including rivers and streams. The notable rivers are the Wiwi, Subin, Aboabo, Owabi, Sisai, Oda, Nsuben, Suntre, Kwadaso, Asuoyeboa as shown in Figure.

Data Collection Technique and Analysis
The mixed method approach was used, namely the qualitative and quantitative approaches. The qualitative method comprised the literature reviewed which served as the theoretical foundation to the study. Through the literature, some of the demographic variables including gender, age, education, occupation, marital status, ethnicity/tribe and length of stay were adopted from Opoku (2013) and Kumi et al. (2015) to help design the questionnaire. Other demographic variables used were religion, income and type of households. The quantitative approach comprised questionnaire survey. The respondents were randomly selected from the residents living along the Wiwi and the Subin rivers. The distribution of questionnaire was done within the 300 meters (330 yards) on both sides of the rivers established as green-belts during the colonial era and therefore prohibited from habitation (Curtin, 1992;Quagraine, 2011). With study area total population estimates of 1,720 and 2,130 along the Wiwi and Subin rivers respectively, sample sizes of 10% (Asamoah-Gyimah and Duodu, 2007) were used for the collection of data. Out of the 172 questionnaires for Wiwi and 213 for Subin distributed, 138 and 180 respectively were rightly completed, returned and used for the study. The questionnaire data was analysed using a quantitative method with the aid of the Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS). The data was rst compared to the current demographic distribution data of the Ashanti region (AR) and Ghana as a whole (GSS, 2012) and data sourced from literature for possible similarities and differences that would be important for policy-decision making. Table 1 shows a dominance of female presence in the data for Ghana, Ashanti region (AR), Wiwi and Subin rivers. However, its intensities are revealed along the wetlands of Wiwi (55.8%) and Subin (58.9%), as compared to the 51.1% and the 51.6% of Ghana and the AR respectively. The male distribution is the reverse of the females'. While this result con rms Pattison et al. (2011), it also differs from Tyler (2011), Opoku (2013) and Kumi et al. (2015) where male dominance is revealed. The result suggests that for policy-decision making, gender data may not be generalized but may be sourced at the individual localities.

Age Distribution
Whereas the age groups 20s and 30s have higher scores in both the AR (36.0% and 25.2%) and Ghana (34.7% and 24.6%) respectively, the age group with the highest scores along the rivers was the age group 40s: Wiwi (39.9%) and Subin (61.6%). Nevertheless, the concentration of the younger and active ages of 20s, 30s ,40s was similar along the rivers (Wiwi and Subin) and also in AR and Ghana. This nding agrees with Kumi et al. (2015) where the same age groups (20s, 30s, 40s) scored higher among the respondents and Tyler (2011) where mostly young people (18-64 years) constituted 62% of the population. For policy purposes, it must be noted that, though wetlands attract young and active population, it is the more matured ones (40s) that are more prevalent. Table 3 shows higher percentages of Senior High School (SHS) certi cate holders along the rivers (Wiwi 39.86% and Subin 21.0%) and those with no formal education (Wiwi, 31.9% and Subin 52.8%). This nding con rms Opoku (2013) where those with 'no formal education' were the highest, followed by SHS/ Secondary Certi cate holders. That wetlands are populated with illiterate population is attested by Foziah (2009), but the situation becomes alarming when the data for Wiwi (31.9%) and Subin (52.8%) is compared to those of AR (2.2%) and Ghana (2.9%). For policy-decision making, it is important to note that, wetlands are mostly populated with those without formal education, and this phenomenon poses problems since illiterates may consider wetlands to be wastelands that must be converted into other 'pro table' uses such as subsistent farming or into whatever one likes (Tebeau, 1980;Patrick Jr., 1994).

Educational Background
In Kumi et al. (2015), those with SHS/Secondary School certi cate holders had the highest concentration along wetlands, like the high percentage revealed at the Subin river. The proliferation of SHS Certi cate holders can also pose problems. Unable to continue their formal education, SHS Certi cate holders would have to be looking for jobs which currently in Ghana are di cult to nd. As a consequence, they may feel comfortable to settle on the cheap or free lands along wetlands to engage in subsistent jobs that destroy wetland resources. This nding is crucial for policy-decision making since this phenomenon may introduce new demographic distribution along wetlands with the rapidly increasing numbers of the SHS certi cate holders coming from the recently introduced free SHS education in Ghana.

Occupation
As shown in Table 4, the most prevalent occupation along the two wetlands was self-employment (Wiwi, 39.9% and Subin, 38.0%) in various small and medium scale endeavours (Opoku 2013). This nding is in consonance with, but at higher percentages for both the AR (73.3%) and Ghana (75.4%). However, along the wetlands, unemployment not only came second but had high rates of 23.91% along Wiwi and 47.0% along Subin rivers compared to AR (4.5%) and Ghana (3.6%). Other studies have also identi ed the economically marginalized as those who mostly depend on wetland resources including Ozesmi (1999), Foziah (2009) and Pattison et al. (2011). The concentration of the unemployed along the rivers (wetlands) may be due to the presence of free or cheap land and building materials that can be used to raise cheap shelters to live in as one searches for a job in the city.

Marital Status
Though the married had higher percentages at Wiwi (79.71%) and at Subin (70.5%) as shown in Table 5, the nding re ects the general demographic characteristics of both AR (51.9%) and Ghana (55.1%). It also agrees with Kumi et al (2015) where the married were in the majority and the divorced and widows were in the minority. Neither wetland registered the divorced nor the separated among the respondents.

Ethnicity
All the three (3) major ethnic groups in Ghana namely, the Akan (53.1%), Dagomba (Mole-Dagbani) (18.6%) and the Ewe (15.6%) were found along the two wetlands (Table 6)  wetlands. It will be important to let policy-decision making re ect the ethnicity or the tribe of a particular locality since data on wetlands also need to be multi-scalar (Finlayson and Spiers, 1999).

Religion
The two most practiced religions in Ghana, Christianity (75.2%) and Islam (18.6%) were the only ones practiced at Wiwi (76.1% and 23.9%) and Subin (88.3% and 11.7%) respectively as shown in Table 7. This nding differs from the study by Kumi et al, (2015) conducted in Accra, Ghana, where African Traditional Religion (ATR) came second with 32% after Christianity (60%). For policydecision making, the distribution of religious practices along wetlands, like ethnicity, may be local community biased.

Households
The prevailing modes of household type for the respondents were the tenancy and family house types, and the percentages were Wiwi (44.2% and 39.8%) and Subin (76.7% and 20.6%) respectively, as shown in Table 8. This differs from both the AR and Ghana where the leading modes were the tenancy (38.3% and 31.3%) and the house ownership (35.1% and 47.5%) respectively. This nding suggests that the respondents were not in positions to own houses, so they were mostly renting, though some also stayed in family houses. This phenomenon may also be due to the transient nature of wetland settlers.

Length of Stay
Most of the respondents have been staying along the wetlands for less than ve years: 71.2% at Wiwi and 76.7% at Subin. This is followed by those who have stayed 11-20 years and 5-10 years as shown in Table 9. The ndings together with the prevailing household modes are important for policy-decision making since they suggest that most wetland settlers stay for a relatively short time (5 or less years) and move elsewhere to nd jobs and better living. Only those who have been staying there for more than 20 years seem to be permanent.

Incomes
The ndings from Table 10 show that 83.7% and 91.8% of the respondents at Wiwi and Subin respectively earned Gh¢500.00 ($87.00) or below. This income falls below the average monthly wage of Gh¢974 ($171) in Ghana (GSS, 2019) though it is still about the minimum monthly wage gure of Gh¢319.00 ($55.50) (WageIndicator Foundation, 2020) in the country. The ndings suggest that only a few (16.3% at Wiwi and 8.9% of Subin) are not poor and have income above average, per the Ghanaian standard. These ndings which con rm In eld (1988), Newmark et al. (1993), McGregor (1995), Badola (1997), Ozesmi (1999) and Tyler (2011) that, mostly it is the poor who settle along wetlands to take advantage of their natural resources, are important for policy-decision making Conclusion During the colonial period in Ghana, the area that stretched from the edge of wetlands (rivers and streams) to 300 meters inland were established as green-belts in Kumasi and human settlements were prohibited in those areas. Currently, settlements are evolving along edges of many rivers and streams in Ghana, including the Wiwi and Subin rivers in Kumasi without regard to the green-belts prohibitions, or the damage settlements cause to wetlands. The ndings of this study call for the review of existing policies and or enactment of new ones to help protect and manage wetlands sustainably in Ghana. The demographic characteristics of wetland settlers revealed in this study neither favour sustainable management and utilization of wetlands nor socio-economic development, since settlers are mostly poor, without formal education and employment, though mostly young and active. Consequently, the wetlands would be destroyed by the rapidity of the depletion of their natural resources. Though the low incomes and poverty prevalent along wetlands make most wetland settlers transient, another pressing issue that must be confronted is the accumulating presence of the SHS certi cate holders who were also found to be young, active, jobless and poor.

Declarations
Funding: Not applicable Con ict of interest: The authors declare that there is no actual or potential con ict of interest in terms of nancial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately in uence or be perceived to in uence this work. The cost of undertaking this research was borne by the authors and as such has no potential of adversely in uencing the article's content.

Availability of data: Not applicable
Code availability: Not applicable Ethics Approval: The ethics of the study protocol was approved by the Architecture Department Review Board, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and No human, animal, plant or soil subjects were used for this study. The study involved questionnaire-based survey of residents at wetland sites. Participants provided their verbal informed consent for the survey questions.
Consent to Participate: All participants included in the questionnaire survey gave verbal informed consent to participate in this research.
Consent for publication: All participants included in the questionnaire survey gave verbal informed consent to publish the data contained in this article.