Rural-urban linkages in West Africa

Cities in West African countries are among the fastest growing in the world, with profound implications for the region's food systems and agricultural land use. This dissertation investigates the far-reaching effects of West Africa's rapid urbanization on marginalized rural hinterlands and their agricultural livelihoods. It demonstrates that rural systems cannot be assessed as isolated entities as they are embedded in a global food system and trade network. Urban market demands increasingly shape the nature of even distant and traditional agro-ecosystems by influencing their land use decisions and resilience to economic shocks and climate change. The dissertation aims to answer how and to what extent these rural systems are linked to West Africa's urbanization processes, and what measures are needed to ensure sustainable social-ecological interactions. The studies draw on concepts of coupled human-environment systems, common-pool resource governance, and rural-urban telecoupling. A combination of remote sensing, ground-truthing using GPS devices, climate data, and surveys are employed. Based on empirical findings, literature reviews, and case studies, conceptual frameworks are developed to better explain the pathways between urban demand and rural land use, along with their sustainability implications. The dissertation finishes with an outlook for future research on this topic.