The Correlation Between Residents’ Perception and Use of Urban Wetlands in Kumasi, Ghana

Recent urban sprawl and human settlements in general tend to stretch towards wetlands and pose severe threat of destructing wetland ecosystem prestige. Research has enlightened society on the general benefits of urban wetlands, including provision of food and portable water, fuel and construction wood, flood control and pollution filtration systems and grounds for scientific experiments and touristic purposes. In spite of these, the Ghanaian perception and activities, like that of human beings in general, are mostly negative towards urban wetlands. Thus, the study investigated the relationship between residents’ perception and use of urban wetlands in Kumasi, Ghana. 318 residents living within a 100-m stretch on both sides of the banks of two rivers (Subin and Wiwi) in Kumasi responded to a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire. Relative Important Index analyses revealed that most respondents (at both locations) perceived wetlands as mostly ‘abandoned lands’ and as ‘mosquito breeding grounds’, and used them mostly as ‘waste disposal grounds’, and for ‘agriculture’ and ‘fuel wood harvesting’. The study also found a strong positive linear correlation between how Subin respondents perceived wetlands and how Wiwi respondents perceived wetlands. Similar results were found in their usage of wetlands. Nevertheless, the correlation between how Subin respondents perceived and used wetlands, though positive, was statistically weak to make wetland perception a predictor of wetland usage. Similar result was also revealed in the Wiwi analysis. Policies, strategies and sensitization must rather be focused directly to sustainable usage of wetlands.