Sat on a crumbling wall of concrete blocks, 71-year-old Agbasa Stanley gazes out at the Gulf of Guinea. Here in Dzakplagbe village, in Ghana’s south-eastern Volta region, Stanley’s face is a mixture of wonder and sadness. “I was born and raised here,” he says. “Back then, the sea was miles away from where we are standing. Many houses, and whole communities, have been swallowed by the water.”
Fishing communities like Dzakplagbe and Fuveme once thrived here. But this part of Volta is located on a narrow strip of land that separates the Keta Lagoon from the Atlantic Ocean, and it has been gradually sinking. Formerly fertile land is now open water. Scattered remnants of stone walls serve as faint reminders of the homes and lives that previously flourished here.
Formerly a fisher, Stanley is among the last to remain in Dzakplagbe. “Some moved to other areas nearby, and others went far away,” he says. “But we stayed because we had nowhere else to go. We cannot afford to build new homes. This is our home, our roots, and now, it’s all under the sea.” His voice breaks as tears fill his eyes.
Stanley’s experience is emblematic of the harsh reality facing over seven million people, about a quarter of the population, who call Ghana’s coastal regions home. Communities located along the country’s south-eastern coast – including Dzita, Keta, Horve, Blekusu and Adina – have lost over 10,000 structures, including schools and churches, as well as other assets like livestock, much of it quickly to sudden waves.
The land is disappearing at an alarming rate. Ghana’s coastal erosion causes the sea to progress inland at an average rate of two metres per year. About 37% of Fuveme’s coastal land was lost to flooding and erosion between 2005 and 2017, according to an associate professor of coastal processes at the University of Ghana writing for Unesco in 2021.
Why are the communities sinking?
Ghana’s eastern coastline, where Dzakplagbe, Fuveme and Keta are located, is worst affected by coastal erosion. Amid sea levels rising due to climate change, these communities also face stronger tidal waves. This activity erodes land, floods homes and can eventually cause communities to sink.
“The sandy nature of our shoreline [means it] lacks a rocky seafloor to act as a barrier, allowing waves to erode the coast more easily,” explains Sedem Abla Abui Adjorlolo, an environmental management expert at the Institute of Climate, Coastal and Environmental Protection, a local think-tank.
A 2013 research paper, a collaboration between academics in China and Ghana, concluded that climate change has played a significant role in the rapid sinking of Ghana’s coastal regions. The situation has been worsened by decades of unregulated human activities, ranging from sand mining and mineral extraction to coastal deforestation and canal dredging. “In the past, the coastline in Ghana was surrounded by green forests and thick trees,” the paper stated. “However, over the years, activities like deforestation as a result of population growth and urbanisation have resulted in those areas being cleared for infrastructural development. These activities have increased the susceptibility of the sea to global climate change and natural occurrences like winds, which can cause severe waves and tides to wash away the coast.”
Nowhere safe
The rising waters are a relentless foe. Fuveme was once a picturesque village perched upon the northern edge of the Gulf of Guinea. The sea breeze refreshed its residents and fishing was a way of life. By May 2022, however, it had been engulfed by the sea.
Dialogue Earth visited the area in October 2024 and found no remaining trace of the once-thriving community of roughly 1,000 people. When Fuveme started to sink, many of its residents relocated to nearby Dzakplagbe. But Dzakplagbe was also going. Former residents recount how the sea kept advancing, with each wave bringing more destruction. They say around 500 homes have been destroyed.
Today, the area is marked by buried blocks, ruined properties, and a few people such as Stanley, living in precarious houses and clinging to what remains. Many of those who lost their homes now live kilometres away in makeshift shelters made from coconut fronds.
“When you’ve lost everything, what’s left to fear?” says Sargblo, who still lives in Dzakplagbe. “We stay because this is our ancestral land, the place we called home before the sea took it away. Now, we live in ruins and rely on subsistence fishing to survive.”
A walk through Volta’s Keta municipality reveals widespread destruction along the coast. In 2021, heavy tidal waves destroyed more than 500 houses and displaced about 4,000 residents. Many have yet to recover financially or psychologically.
The effects of coastal erosion in Ghana have been apparent from as early as 1974. The situation is dire: while Ghana loses an average of two to three metres of coastline each year, areas like Dzakplagbe, Keta, and Fuveme are eroding at rates of over five metres per year.
Besides its vanishing coastal lands, Ghana’s cultural heritage is also slipping away with the tide.
Keta’s Fort Prinzenstein, for example, was once a bustling tourism site. Built in 1784 by the Danes, the Unesco World Heritage Site held enslaved Africans during the transatlantic slave trade. Today, 90% of the fort is gone, and what remains is in ruins. “In 1907, the erosion started,” says James Ocloo Akorli, a historian and caretaker of the fort’s remains. “First, it was the coconut trees that were destroyed. Then, over time, the houses went. Eventually, the sea destroyed the fort. By 1980, when it was still being used as a prison, the damage was already severe.”
In Ada Foah, Greater Accra, Fort Kongestein tells a similar story. Built in 1783, it once played an important role in the European slave trade as a hub for the transportation of people and goods. The fort has since been entirely claimed by the sea, erasing a silent witness to the injustice of slavery.
Sea wall or nature-based solutions?
The Ghanaian government’s primary response to this coastal erosion crisis has been to construct sea defences in select areas. Clearly, however, it is too late for some communities.
“It is critical to act swiftly to protect the small amount of viable land we have left,” says Adjorlolo. “Building sea defences would help conserve some flora and fauna for future generations.”
Ghana is one of 17 West African countries participating in the West Africa Coastal Areas Management Program (WACA). This initiative, financed by the Nordic Development Fund and managed by World Bank Group, is a regional, multi-country effort designed to strengthen the resilience of coastal communities. If implemented effectively in Ghana, this programme will support existing initiatives enhancing coastal resilience.
One notable intervention to Ghana’s costal erosion was the Keta Sea Defense Project, built between 1999 and 2000 at a cost of USD 100 million. This sea wall aimed to prevent severe erosion and flooding between Keta and Horve in Volta. A WACA analysis says the Keta Sea Defense has offered some relief, but that it has also increased coastal erosion to the east, at the Ghana-Togo border, by over 50%.
Joel Degue, a climate expert who represents the Centre for Natural Resources and Environmental Management (CNREM) in Tema, near Accra, explains: “The effect of the sea walls is an acute erosion at the down-drift [the route taken by displaced wave energy] side of where the walls have been placed. So, what happens is that, a few hundred metres away from the last sea wall, erosion activities start occurring at a faster rate.
“When the project was completed, the communities down-drift from Horve [Agavedzi and Blekusu, down to Aflao) started experiencing very acute erosional activities that they had never experienced before.”
We can’t fight nature; we can only work with itBright Mawunyo Adzagba, founder of the Keta Ramsar Center
WACA estimates USD 1.14 billion would be required to comprehensively protect the Ghanaian communities most vulnerable to this erosion using sea walls.
Experts consulted by Dialogue Earth say relying solely on sea walls is neither sustainable nor environmentally sound; a long-term solution could be better-structured coastal management strategies that work with nature, rather than against it. Bright Mawunyo Adzagba, the founder of Keta Ramsar Center, a local wetlands conservation NGO, says:
“The entire coastline needs dredging to reclaim land and weaken the waves’ impact. When the sea is deep enough, wave energy dissipates, which could halt further erosion. Dredging would also boost fish populations, helping fishermen regain their livelihoods. Instead of depending on massive rocks, we should plant trees as windbreakers and embrace nature’s power. We can’t fight nature; we can only work with it.”
As of 2018, 44.6% of humanity lived within 150 kilometres of a shoreline. Research into sea-level rise finds hundreds of millions of them could be at risk of losing their homes and livelihoods by 2100.
Many communities have been destroyed by the sea. But residents of communities assisted by organisations such as the Keta Ramsar Center demonstrate the potential for mitigation; for example, by restoring degraded mangrove wetlands in Anyanui and Atiteti, part of Volta’s Anloga district.
For now, coastal residents of Ghana who do not benefit from any coastal protection initiatives will continue to endure the looming threat of the sea consuming their homes and livelihoods.
With the accelerating rate of erosion, and slow response in implementing solutions, one can only wonder if they will have a place to call home in the years to come.
