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The Earth including its biological (terrestrial and marine) ecosystems, is being transformed as a result of human activities (Fürst et al., 2013; Pullanikkatil, L. G. Palamuleni and Ruhiiga, 2016; Pullanikkatil, L. Palamuleni and Ruhiiga, 2016). These global changes include changes in the composition of the atmosphere, including increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases; changes in global and regional climate; habitat destruction and land cover change (Meyfroidt and Lambin, 2011; Romo-Lozano et al., 2016). Nowhere are the impacts of human activities more apparent than in terrestrial ecosystems, with even the most remote and pristine terrestrial systems experiencing the effects of human-driven global change (Verburg et al., 2009; Hawthorne et al., 2011; Seabrook, Mcalpine and Bowen, 2011; Deheuvels et al., 2012; Baudron and Giller, 2014). Land use and land cover change (LUCC) as the core of coupled human-environment systems has become a major field of landscape science in the study of global environmental change (Tang et al., 2014).
LUCC exerts important impacts on the regional ecosystem and environment, and consequently influences global environment (Foley et al., 2005, Grimm et al., 2008). Land-use change is projected to have the largest global impact on biodiversity by the year 2100, followed by climate change, nitrogen deposition, species introductions and changing concentrations of atmospheric CO2. Land-use change is expected to be of particular importance in the tropics (Chapin et al., 2000).
High levels of deforestation threaten not only the unique biodiversity of the country, watersheds or water catchment area alone, but the livelihoods of a large population who face environmental degradation primarily in the form of water resource scarcity and soil loss (Ministry of Water Resources Works and Housing, 2011; Government of Ghana, 2015; Schep et al., 2016).
The Owabi and Barekese Catchment Areas are some of the important watershed areas in Ghana experiencing degradation (FC, 2014; Akoto et al., 2017). The catchment areas support an interesting diversity of flora and fauna (Naayo, 2012) and provide critical ecosystem services including hydrology adjustment, climate regulation, biodiversity maintenance, water purification and erosion control that need to be sustained. However, the forest component of the chain as in other parts of Ghana is experiencing degradation and land-use changes in a way that threatens water quality and continued water supply to the target population of Kumasi, second most densely populated city in Ghana. These two areas provide an excellent opportunity to evaluate landuse change patterns and consequences of deforestation and forest degradation at the forest and water interface due to perceived increasing degradation of the forest ecosystems and water catchment areas, which is being largely deforested and replaced with other landuses.