HELP!...Azizanya is drowning, Friday, August 20, 2010, Spread

MICHAEL Otu Osabutey trudges through the sandy beach at Azizanya, a coastal village near Ada Foah in the Dangme East District of the Greater Accra Region, and points to a crumbled and dilapidated concrete walls of a house.

“That used to be my family house, the sea was becoming destructive, so we had no choice but to move to Big Ada” he said,  as he sat  on  the edge of a caved-in grave of one Captain Cooper whose mortal remains according to the grave inscription was buried there some 60 years ago.

 “Those lines of uprooted coconut trees used to border our playground and vegetable gardens,'' he added solemnly against the loud crash of the  ocean waves pounding the seashore.

Laying in the ruins of this small coastal town once described as a vibrant fishing post were several houses reduced now to a tale of broken walls and shattered dreams.

Some of the houses standing some 200 metres from the coast were also not spared as they showed decaying, algae-infested concrete surfaces that had been at the receiving end of the advancing and battering tidal waves, with their roofs ripped off and abandoned by their owners who chose to seek life’s prospects elsewhere.

The current has continually wreaked havoc on the township and its surrounding communities, submerging buildings and trees and causing damage to properties running into millions of cedis.

According to Michael, the last straw that sent him and his family running for cover was in  2005 when his father was up at 1:30 am to respond to the call of nature but came face to face with flooding in  their house which rose as far up as his knee level.

Azizanya is on the edge of a land that juts off the Ada peninsula, one of the 25 coastal settlements in Ghana the Department of Oceanography and Fisheries of the University says may be swallowed by the ocean some decades to come. Many of these communities are at the mercy of the devastating sea erosion that has left Azizanya, a ghost town.

Although the community appeared deserted, there are a few people who have braved the odds and defied the ravaging sea. Among these people is a septuagenarian who introduced himself as Awotse Adjokatse.

“Many have left but I have no option but to stay because there is no alternative place to live. What we are doing now is to fortify the base of our walls and hope that the government responds to our call for a sea defence wall just like what is at Keta,” he said with a grin.

Awotse Adjokatse told the Daily Graphic that until then the battle against the advancing ocean remained a headache for those who could not afford to relocate.

Sea erosion

According to Wikipedia, Coastal erosion is the wearing away of land or the removal of beach or dune sediments by wave action, tidal  or wave currents.
Causes of this disturbing phenomena, according to the Oceanography Department of the University of Ghana (UG), could be both natural and man-made.

Natural causes

 Waves generated by storms and strong wind actioncause coastal erosion, which may take the form of long-term losses of sediment and rocks, or merely the temporary redistribution of coastal sediments. The erosion in one location may result in the build-up of sand or sediments elsewhere.

On rocky coasts, coastal erosion results in dramatic rock formations in areas where the coastline contains rock layers with different resistance to erosion resulting in softer areas becoming eroded much faster than harder ones. Coastal erosion occurs along beaches as the shoreline moves inland. Both wind action and water action have important parts in this process and constantly change the boundary between land and water as the beach is constantly pounded by waves which eventually break fragments of ground and rock into sand that is not able to resist the constant surge of the tidal waves.

Climate change

Sea Erosion, according to Mr Kojo Agbenor-Efunam of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is one of the many ripple effects of climate change.

Climate Change is the changes in weather patterns as a result of increases in the average temperature on the earth. It is considered the greatest challenge facing the environment which is caused by human activities including the burning of fossil fuels, the emission of greenhouse gases, land clearing.

The United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that sea levels could rise anywhere from 18 cm (about 7 inches) to 60 cm (2 feet) by 2100.

IPCC was established by the   United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the  World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in 1988 to assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of human induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for mitigation and adaptation.

The IPCC also reports that sea levels have already risen 0.12 inches a year since 1993. That is nearly two inches or four and a half centimetres in the last fifteen years.

Consequence of rising sea levels

 Dr Kwasi Appeaning-Addo, a   lecturer  with the Oceanography Department of the UG, observed that even where urban areas appeared unscathed, sea level rise would pose a challenge to water supply as the salty sea water might muddle up with adjoining fresh water bodies and underground water supplies.
He noted that the increasing salinity would make the ground water undrinkable and unsuitable for agricultural purposes resulting in food and water insecurity.

The U.N.'s climate change panel also predicts global warming, which is  an increase in the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere especially a sustained increase that causes climatic changes, will raise the sea by 18 to 59 cm (7 and 24 inches) this century, submerging low lying parts of coastal Africa, especially the densely populated major cities of West Africa by 2011.

Man-made activities-Sand mining

The gloomy picture is further worsened by the activities of sand winners desperate to make their living from the volumes of sand on the country’s beaches.
Although sand winning is banned along beaches in the country, it continues to be a source of sand supply for the real estate sector.

The Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography in a 1997 publication on the Effect of the Coastal Sand Mining in Ghana indicated that the sand winning along the country’s coastline contributed   from 17 per cent in 1986 to 21 per cent in 1993 to the construction industry.

Commenting on the possible reprisal of sand winning on the country’s coast, Dr Addo  emphasised the need for mass education, especially for coastal inhabitants, to ensure that they understood the dynamics and enormity of coastal erosion.

Dr Appeaning-Addo observed that there was evidence to prove that the damming of the Volta Lake and the construction of the Tema Harbour had resulted in sediments from the lake and other rivers being intercepted. This, he indicated, contributed to  the ocean being denied nourishment.


The Ghana situation

Available information from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change indicates that in Ghana, "up to 1,000 kilometres of land may be lost in the Volta Delta owing to sea-level rise and inundation.”

Ghana's low-lying shore makes it particularly vulnerable.

According to EPA estimates, the ocean claims 1.5 to 2 metres of the 539- kilometre coastline annually; with the most risky areas, Ada Foah and the Eastern parts of Keta, recording 4 metres.

Hot spots

In the quest to provide the nation with a comprehensive database to help in tackling the issue, the Oceanography and Fisheries Department of the UG has mapped the following with red flags:
Greater Accra Region: Kokrobite, Bortianor, Labadi, Teshie, Nungua, Tema, Prampram, Old Ningo and Ada

Volta Region: Keta, Dzito, Anyanui, and Atorkor

Central Region: Elmina, Tantuam, Komenda and Senya–Breku

Western Region: Esamang, Axim, Prince’s Town, Dixcove, Adjua, Amanful Kuma,  Shama  and Atekechi


According to Mr Agbenor-Efunam, the EPA’s Status of the Coastal Zone Report of 2006 indicates that two-thirds of the total land areas along the country’s coast are in danger of being consumed by the sea.
“For every metre rise in sea level in Ghana, there is expected to be 1,110 sq. km loss in land to the ocean,” he explained.

Ada Foah and the many other coastal communities are not alone in this increasing threat to human life; the Osu Castle,  the seat of government, could be no more in 40 years as a result of the impact of climate change.

The prediction contained in a study conducted   by the Department of Oceanography and Fisheries of the University of Ghana,  and published by the Daily Graphic of Friday December 4, 2010 revealed that the Castle, one of the prized relics of the slave trade and symbol of political authority along the West Coast of Africa, could be consumed by tidal waves if the environmental menace is not halted.

Impact of sea erosion on Tourism

It is not a skeleton in the cupboard that Ghana’s beaches are not in the leagues of the famous Caribbean ‘tourist-magnetising’ white sand beaches, but sea erosion is further worsening the plight of investors in the sector.

Mr Ben Ohene-Aryeh, Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB), said the country’s 554-Kilometre beaches front crying out for investment is being destroyed by the activities of sand winners.

“This illegal activity is increasing the threat of sea erosion along the beaches of which investors, tourists and the tourism sector are bearing the brunt.”

He said if the phenomena went unchecked, it could drive away tourists and culminate in the loss of revenue to the country. He, therefore, appealed to district assemblies and the inhabitants of coastal communities to protect the beaches.

 Dr Appeaning-Addo agreed with the assertion but was of the view that “the lack of information on the country’s coastal geomorphology with regard to changing trends is affecting the development of coastal tourism development in the country. If we want to increase tourism turnout, we have to preserve the coastline”.

“The lack of reliable information also undermines sustainable management of our coastal resources,” he added.

Many of the country’s 32 colonial forts along the coastline are also at risk, Dr Appeaning-Addo warned.
“The probability that we could lose these national assets which earn the country a lot of foreign exchange also remain very high,” he noted.

West Africa and beyond

In coastal West Africa, rising sea levels linked to the melting of the polar ice caps are conspiring with coastal erosion to slowly submerge communities.


According to the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), West Africa's coastline extending from the orange dunes in Mauritania to the dense tropical forests in Cameroon will be under water by the end of the century as a direct consequence of climate change.

The report indicates that the flooding is likely be most severe in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial city, because of its position at the southern end of the Gulf of Guinea where stronger tropical storms from the South Atlantic create storm and surges up to three metres high.

The IRIN also predicts that most of the 15 million inhabitants of Lagos will be displaced and Nigeria's Southern Delta region where oil installations are located will also be swamped.

Other major urban centres in West Africa which experts have identified as flood-prone are The Gambia’s Banjul, Bissau in Guinea Bissau, and Nouakchott in Mauritania.

Environmentalists blame the gradual melting of the 3,000 metre-thick Greenland ice cap in the Arctic as being responsible for the coastal erosion along the Gulf of Guinea.

The Greenland ice cap or ice sheet is a vast body of  ice covering 1,710,000 sq km, an estimated   80 per cent, of the surface of Greenland. It is the second largest ice body in the   world, after the  Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Compounding the situation in West Africa, in August 2007, was a tropical storm measuring 5,000 kilometres off the coast that caused a shift in the strong currents that run near the Nigerian coast and destroyed a protective sand bar.

The African continent has 320 coastal cities and 56 million people living in coastal zones less than 10 metres above sea level and remain at risk in the ensuing fight against sea erosion.

Traditional Authorities Appeal

At the recent celebration of the Asafotufiami Festival, Nene Kabu Abram Akuaku , the Paramount Chief of the Ada Traditional Area, expressed worry about the inability of work to start on the project even though a year ago, the area had re ceived assurances that funding for the project had been received and contract awarded.
“Up to this moment, we have not seen any action on the sea front. In the meantime, the devastation on the coastline by the sea is continuing unabated and people are being rendered homeless.

Government Intervention

But the Minister of Works and Housing, Mr Alban S.K. Bagbin, says work on the 67 million-Euro project, which is being undertaken by Dredging International, has begun.

According to him, the company undertaking the project,  Dredging International, was taking measurements and collecting the needed data, and had also undertaken the preliminary construction of site offices and general construction in addition to the preparation of quarries for the supply of armour rocks, for the project.

He appealed to landowners whose lands would be required to support the project to co-operate with the consultant and the contractors to enable them to expedite action on the project.

When contacted, the Managing Director of the company, Mr Jan De Roeck, confirmed the company had started work on the project and stated that it would be completed in two years.

A Pool of solutions

Environmental experts offer different solutions, but all agree on the futility and prohibitive cost of erecting sea defence structures.

Dr Appeaning-Addo said instead of the ad hoc manner in which issues concerning coastal erosion were being handled in the country, “what we need now is the availability of resources to designated environmental institutions to conduct studies that would help the country surmount the sea erosion threat”.

He noted that to help build a comprehensive database on sea erosion in the country, the Coastal Process Research Unit of the UG’s Oceanography and Fisheries Department was currently involved in the critical assessment of the erosion situation along the country’s coast with funding from the Office of Naval Research under the US Navy.

“The sea defence walls are temporary solutions that shift the problem from one area to another,” he noted.

According to him, the sea rampage on the country’s coast is exacerbated by poor land management on the coast and badly planned buildings.

“Encroachment on the coastal land has  resulted in a coastal squeeze situation, whereby less space is now available for the coastal zone to accommodate eroding forces or adjust to changes such as  sea level rise,” he explained.

Mr Agbenor-Efunam, for his part, noted that besides the sea defence wall and the relocation of coastal inhabitants, an  effective implementation of policies aimed at protecting the coast remained a viable alternative for arresting the situation.