Chapter 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: RESOURCES AND MASTERPLAN FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF AGRICULTURE IN THE SADA ZONE

Ghana is one of the most extensively surveyed countries in Africa from a natural resources point of view. Since colonial times when it was the Gold Coast, countless studies, feasibility reports, water resources assessments and soil reconnaissance surveys have been carried out for selected sites within the country. Most of these studies, though, have focused their attention on the water resources-based development potentials that can be generated from the economic exploitation of Ghana’s main drainage basin (The Volta River System), its main tributaries (The Black and White Volta and the Oti River), in addition to the wide network of secondary and tertiary streams that contribute to the impressive amounts of discharge into Lake Volta and the lower sections of the Basin (Tamne, Morago, Tono, Sissili, Kulpawn, Nasia, Gushie, Nabogo, Mole, Mawli, Daka, and many others). Proposed water-based developments have been primarily in the field of hydropower, with a modest attention on irrigation, flood control, navigation and urban water supply.