Large household survey conducted in the four small towns
The household survey, with more than 1200 respondents in total, was conducted in the four small towns in Ghana and Burkina Faso during April and May 2024. Questionnaire interviews were carried out in approximately 500 households in each small town, primarily with the household heads. The questionnaire included information on present and absent household members.
With the questionnaire, we explore the ecosystems-urbanisation-livelihoods nexus by examining household characteristics and livelihood strategies of different socio-economic groups in the small towns identified according to their time and location of settlement in the small towns and how such livelihoods rely on and impact environmental resource use and availability.
The households were sampled through a stratified random sampling strategy, where we initially selected interesting and relevant areas of the small towns with the aim to cover differences and particularities among the areas related to town expansion and social and environmental characteristics and vulnerabilities. Following this, we selected an equal number of households from each small-town area based on GPS points generated randomly from maps of the areas imported into ArcGIS.
The survey interviews were conducted by enumerators and registered on tablets. The questionnaire was structured into seven modules covering household and settler characteristics, mobilities and absentees, household economy, resource use, service provision and experiences with exposure to climate-related events.