Identifying spatially-explicit land use factors associated with forest patch sizes in a forest reserve in Ghana

Anthropogenic land use is a major contributing factor to global environmental change, including forest cover loss and fragmentation. Land managers need up to date spatio-temporal land use information to plan for future land uses and mitigate adverse impacts. Here, we use spatially-explicit logistic regression analysis and methods from remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) to model the relationship between land use factors and forest patches using information from satellite images from the Tano-Offin Forest Reserve in Ghana. The study finds that it is 3,350 times more likely for forest patches that are not within 1 km from barren grounds to be greater than the mean patch size of forest (800 m2) (CI = 297-37,785, P = 0.000). Also, the study finds that it is 2,365 times more likely for the forest patches that are not within 1 km from access roads to be greater than the mean patch size of forest (CI=245-22,776; P = 0.000). These findings suggest that to maintain larger and contiguous patches of forest cover, there is a need for a policy that prevents the creation and expansion of logging-induced barren grounds. Also, the creation of buffers along access roads will be necessary to prevent further anthropogenic influences that are likely to fragment forest cover.