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To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-8947.2007.00152.x Byline: Isaac Agyemang (1), Adrian McDonald (2), Steve Carver (3) Keywords: European Environmental Agency DPSIR environmental assessment framework; Participatory GIS; Environmental degradation; Environmental assessment; northern Ghana Abstract: Abstract In many communities in northern Ghana, the environment has been altered by complex natural and human driven forces with significant impact on the lives of their inhabitants. The need to formulate an improved, holistic and consistent methodological approach to assess the problem is critical for sustainable natural resource management. This paper examines the potential of the DPSIR environmental assessment framework utilizing GIS-based participatory methodology in the assessment of environmental degradation in northern Ghana. Community truthing tools such as key informant interviews, focus group discussions, participant observation and participatory Geographical Information Systems (GIS) were employed as a means of soliciting societal responses integrated to conventional GIS spatial analysis to measure the indicators of the Driving force-Pressure-State-Impacts-Response (DPSIR) assessment framework. Post classification GIS imagery results show a marked natural vegetation decrease of 634 km2 (42%) of the study area with a corresponding increase of 600 km.sup.2 (39%) of grasses and built-up and barren environment in the period of 14 years from 1990 to 2004. This is attributed to extreme climatic conditions and human driven causes such as poverty, population growth, migration and land tenure system. Poverty reduction strategies, amendment of the Mining and Mineral Law (PNDC law 153), improvement of the existing land tenure system and the control of migrants and Fulani herdsmen from neighbouring Burkina Faso were some of the solutions selected by the research participants, to be emphasized in the National Environmental Action Plan (EPA Act 490). This paper concludes that the DPSIR environmental assessment framework is an effective means of organizing complex environmental information to facilitate policy decision making. Author Affiliation: (1)University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana; and Researcher at the School of Geography, University of Leeds (2)Environmental Management and Head of the School of Geography, University of Leeds (3)School of Geography, University of Leeds Article note: Isaac Agyemang is Lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana; and Researcher at the School of Geography, University of Leeds. E-mail: i.agyemang03@leeds.ac.uk, Adrian McDonald is Professor of Environmental Management and Head of the School of Geography, University of Leeds., Steve Carver is Senior Lecturer at the School of Geography, University of Leeds.

The understanding of evacuation processes is important for improving the effectiveness of evacuation plans in the event of volcanic disasters. In terms of social processes, the enactment of evacuations in volcanic crises depends on the variability of individual/household responses. This variability of population response is related to the uncertainty and unpredictability of the hazard characteristics of volcanoes—specifically, the exact moment at which the eruption occurs (temporal), the magnitude of the eruption and which locations are impacted (spatial). In order to provide enhanced evacuation planning, it is important to recognise the potential problems that emerge during evacuation processes due to such variability. Evacuation simulations are one approach to understanding these processes. However, experimenting with volcanic evacuations in the real world is risky and challenging, and so an agent-based model is proposed to simulate volcanic evacuation. This paper highlights the literature gap for this topic and provides the conceptual design for a simulation using an agent-based model. As an implementation, an initial evacuation model is presented for Mount Merapi in Indonesia, together with potential applications of the model for supporting volcanic evacuation management, discussion of the initial outcomes and suggestions for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]