Assessing livelihood and environmental implications of artisanal and small-scale mining: a case of Akango mining, Nzema East Municipality, Western Region, Ghana

The environmental impacts of artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) are currently a major issue globally. There is cause for concern given the rapid loss of forest resources and pollution of water bodies through contamination with heavy metals like cyanide, arsenic, and mercury. The study investigated the livelihood and environmental implications of artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Akango, a mining community in the Nzema East Municipality of Ghana. Water and soil samples were collected, and some of their associated physiochemical and heavy metal parameters were analyzed. The study used post-classification change detection to estimate the land-use/land-cover change that occurred between 2008 and 2022 and also assessed the spatiotemporal changes and transition potential modeling of the community. Field observations, interviews, and semi-structured questionnaires were employed to obtain first-hand experience regarding the study. The spatiotemporal land-use analyses found a significant increase in mining areas and subsequent settlement expansion, primarily at the expense of water bodies and vegetation. Waterbodies had a great loss, while vegetation showed little change between the study periods. For instance, the study found a significant increase in the size of the settlement and mining areas by 41.72 and 1279.77% respectively between 2008 and 2015 in the study area. However, there was a substantial decrease in the size of the waterbody by 4.58%. Accounting for the decline in the waterbody, 38.4 and 10.02% of the waterbody were converted into mining and bare areas, respectively. In terms of social impacts, ASGM had no statistically significant impacts on school dropout, prostitution, teenage pregnancy, and child labor (p-value > 0.05) but a statistically significant impact on women's abuse, drug abuse, and high rate of in-migration (p-value < 0.05). For the physicochemical properties and the presence of heavy metals in surrounding waterbodies, while the values for drinking water and borehole fell within the acceptable limits of USEPA and WHO, those for stream and river Ankobra fell above the acceptable limits. Economically, ASGM contributed to the expansion of existing businesses, inflation of prices, and loss of livelihoods for farmers. The findings of the study is expected to inform policies related to the regulation of mining activities and address the goal 6 and 15 of the Sustainable Development Goals. The study, therefore, recommends that a decentralized system of monitoring ASM should be prioritized by the government to ensure that small-scale miners strictly adhere to environmental regulations and policies.