Environmental Location Assessment for Seaweed Cultivation in Ghana: A Spatial Multi-Criteria Approach

This study was designed to select potential areas for the cultivation of seaweeds on the Ghanaian coastline. The challenge of selecting suitable sites for the cultivation of seaweed along the coast was investigated, using spatial multi-criteria approach in GIS. Environmental and physical parameters based on spatial multi-criteria decision for the best sites suitable for seaweed cultivation were used. The parameters used included Sea-depth (1-10)m, (11-20)m, (21-30)m and (31-40)m, sea-surface temperature (24-26) degree Celsius, proximity to settlements (0-8) kilometers and sheltered coves (areas sheltered from strong wind and waves) as variables for the various models. The study identified twelve suitable sites along the coast of Ghana for seaweed cultivation. Five of the selected sites were ground-truthed for model validation. All five validation sites have agreed to the GIS models indicating that GIS is the most appropriate tool to use for selecting most suitable environment for seaweed cultivation especially when dealing with a complex coastal environment like Ghana's coastline.