Climate Services 16 (2019) 100123

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Climate Services
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cliser

Original research article

Recommendation domains to scale out climate change adaptation in cocoa T

production in Ghana
Christian Bunna, , Läderach Peterb, Amos Quayec, Muilerman Sanderd, Martin R.A. Noponene,
⁎

Mark Lundya
a
International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Cali, Colombia
b
International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Rome, Italy
c
Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana, Tafo, Ghana
d
Wageningen University & Research
e
Rainforest Alliance, London, United Kingdom

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Climate change is threatening cocoa production in West Africa and guidance towards site-specific adaptation is
Cocoa required. We developed recommendation domains with common degree of impact requiring incremental, sys-
Recommendation domains temic or incremental adaptation effort to provide decision support for interventions to scale out adaptive
Climate impacts practices. We used Random Forests to divide the cocoa production belt into four zones with distinct climatic
Ghana
features under current and future climate conditions. To make model results actionable we used an expert
West Africa
validation approach. Cocoa experts evaluated and verified cocoa occurrence data for model input, prioritized
Decision support
climate and soil variables for modeling use and confirmed the validity of the distribution of climate zones.
Climate change will reduce the available area for cocoa production in the north due to a shift of the northern
transition to the Savanna zone. The current area for cocoa in central Ashanti will remain suitable but will face
uncertain climatic conditions. Areas in the Western, Central and Eastern regions will likely become hotter and
wetter. Each of these projected impacts will require site-specific adaptation strategies matching the degree of
impacts. Failing to prepare may subject rural communities to high risks of losing their livelihoods. Our re-
commendation domains can support impact specific preparation so that the majority of Ghana’s cocoa pro-
duction area may be sustained despite adverse climatic changes. Institutional and private actors can use our
work to scale out locally conceived interventions to alleviate impacts from drought, heat and erratic rainfall.

understandable decision support. Scalable climate smart tech-

Practical implications
Cocoa provides a livelihood to millions of people in West Africa.
It is oftentimes the main cash source for smallholder families that
struggle daily to make a better life for their families and them-
selves. Adapting these farmers to climate change is at the same
time trivial and highly complex: trivial, because most good
agricultural practices, correctly applied, can provide resilience
against shocks and sustainability for long term changes. However,
developing individualized solutions for all cocoa households
currently appears unfeasible and smallholders commonly don’t
have the means to develop forward looking solutions themselves.
As a result, the risk of maladaptation or inefficient use of re-
sources is high. The complexity is thus in the need to translate the
crop- and site specificity of climatic changes into actionable and
nologies exist, but robust processes for large scale interventions to
support farmers need to be developed.
In this study we developed recommendation domains to adapt
cocoa production in Ghana to climate change. The re-
commendation domains are based on a degree of impact concept
that supports stakeholders to design and roll out locally adequate
adaptation measures. The domains are easier to interpret for
stakeholders than previous impact assessments, but are equally
methodologically robust. To develop the domains we combined a
data driven method with a participatory validation process. The
resulting maps were in line with state of the art climate impact
assessments but additionally relate to local perceptions of cocoa
ecological zones and production systems. As a result, the domains
are framed within local knowledge and are more acceptable and
accessible than conventional work.
We differentiated zones by the degree of necessary adaptation

⁎
Corresponding author at: International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Km 17 Recta Cali-Palmira CP 763537, Apartado Aéreo 6713, Cali, Colombia.
E-mail address: cbunn@cgiar.org (C. Bunn).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2019.100123
Received 18 January 2019; Received in revised form 28 June 2019; Accepted 10 September 2019
Available online 20 September 2019
2405-8807/ © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
C. Bunn, et al.
effort. At low change adaptation can be incremental, using rela-
tively minor interventions such as integrated pest management,
adjustment of shade levels and more generally, good agricultural
practices. A higher degree of change requires a systemic adapta-
tion using more shade trees, potentially drip irrigation, or a
change of cocoa variety. In some zones, the climate of the future
was found to be unsuitable at current cocoa locations and a
transformation to other crops may be considered or production
systems with a high degree of functional shade and income di-
versification. Additionally, we point out zones where global cli-
mate models don’t exhibit the necessary degree of agreement to
support specific technological packages and emphasis should be
put on increasing the resilience of producers.
Our recommendation domains can be used by public, private
and non-governmental actors to roll out climate adaptation in-
terventions at scale. Training activities can be differentiated by
the likely degree of impact to provide assistance that responds to
local needs. For example, farmers can be made aware of di-
versification options where needed, or encouraged to intensify
production where adequate. Other stakeholders may use our
work to focus deforestation prevention where most needed.
Certification agencies can adjust compliance requirements across
geographies in a feasible manner. Therefore our approach and
concept should be considered for other regions and crops as a
valuable step towards mainstreaming climate smart agriculture.
1. Introduction
Tools and processes need to be developed to close the gap between
climate change impact evaluation and implementation of adaptive ac-
tion (Campbell et al., 2016). Recommendation domains may support
decision makers to assess the scaling potential of adaptation portfolios
and direct their efficient out-scaling (Notenbaert et al., 2017). Such
domains have to respond to the need of stakeholders for granular cli-
mate risk data to assess the extent and nature of risk for their sourcing
regions (Sloan et al., 2019). Furthermore, adaptation to climate change
will be specific to the local context in which the crop is produced and is
not only driven by yield considerations (Eitzinger et al., 2018). Impact
based prioritization of adaptation approaches depends on the degree of
impact: for low degrees of projected impacts commonly accepted sus-
tainable agricultural practices may be sufficient adaptation strategies,
whereas high degrees of impacts may require a shift to alternative crops
(Vermeulen et al., 2013).
Cocoa production in Ghana has been projected to be challenged by
uncertain precipitation patterns and increasing temperatures (Anim-
Kwapong and Frimpong, 2005; Läderach et al., 2013; Schroth et al.,
2016). Cocoa is produced all over the southern part of Ghana, whereas
in the Northern Savanna the lack of suitable precipitation prohibits its
production. Cocoa production is an integral part of the rural economy
in Ghana. An estimated 800,000 families cultivate and market cocoa on
1.45 million ha in plots of 0.4 to 4 ha (Asamoah and Baah, 2003). Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) generated from cocoa accounted for 16% of
the total GDP, and 68% of the GDP in the primary sector (GSS, 2017).
Negative impacts of climate change on cocoa would have repercussions
for the Ghanaian economy and especially for rural development.
Previous studies have investigated the potential impacts of climate
change on cocoa production for Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana (Läderach
et al., 2013), West-Africa (Schroth et al., 2016), or for Tafo in Ghana
(Anim-Kwapong and Frimpong, 2005). The former studies used the
machine learning based species distribution modeling approach Maxent
(Phillips et al., 2006) to model the impacts of climate change on the
geographic distribution of suitable climate conditions for cocoa pro-
duction. Such methodological approaches assume that a location is
suitable if its combination of climate variables is more similar to known
occurrences than to a usually random sample drawn from the general
environment. The implicit assumption of these studies was that cocoa
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Climate Services 16 (2019) 100123
currently occupies the entire climatic range in which it can be culti-
vated. For Ghana this assumption appears reasonable because of its
widespread production in distinct ecological zones and a history of
devastating bush fires outside of the cocoa areas (Asante et al., 2017).
These studies projected reductions of suitability for cocoa mostly
towards the West of Ghana. Possible increases of suitability were found
for the Eastern region towards Lake Volta (Läderach et al., 2013). These
effects were likely caused by increases in dry season temperatures
(Schroth et al., 2016) or increased potential evapotranspiration during
the short dry season (Läderach et al., 2013). Multiple regression ana-
lysis of time series from the Tafo cocoa region also suggested negative
total production effects in Ghana (Anim-Kwapong and Frimpong,
2005). The latter study linked a regression model with results of global
climate models (GCMs) that projected reduced annual precipitation and
higher mean temperatures to conclude that climate change will have
negative impacts on cocoa production in Ghana.
Thus, without adaptive action, a geographical shift of cocoa pro-
duction in Ghana caused by climate change appears likely and stake-
holders increasingly demand decision support to direct adaptation.
Available work has limited value to develop adaptation strategies that
account for local climatic limits to production (Sloan et al., 2019).
Läderach et al. (2013) presented absolute changes of suitability scores
between current and 2050s climate. Similar absolute changes, however,
may result in different degrees of impact depending on the current
suitability for production. Anim-Kwapong and Frimpong (2005) report
their regression model for a single district without accounting for dif-
ferences in local environmental limits so that their findings may not be
used to scale-out adaptation strategies. On the other spatial extreme,
Schroth et al. (2016) did evaluate the potential degree of impact for the
entire West African cocoa belt so that no region specific potential ha-
zards could be described. It was therefore difficult to develop crop and
site-specific adaptation strategies for Ghana based on these previous
studies.
The objective of our work was to differentiate recommendation
domains with common degrees of projected impacts to inform stake-
holders in Ghanaian cocoa production. Because sustainable action is
most likely if risk assessments appeal to decision frameworks that are
already in use (Weber, 2010), we included expert consultations during
the model validation process.. Our degree of impact concept follows the
framework by Vermeulen et al. (2013) in that it is defined by the ne-
cessary adaptation effort. At low climate impacts, the climate change
signal is indistinguishable from the observed variability and incre-
mental adjustments to the farming systems are sufficient for adaptation.
Higher degrees of impact require systemic adaptation measures, or even
a transformational adaptation to other crops. We added a category of
systemic resilience where adaptation efforts face a high degree of un-
certainty from GCM disagreement. In addition, we sought to provide
information about projected hazards from changes in mean climate to
support anticipatory adaptation strategies.
2. Methods and data
Our description of recommendation domains for climate change
adaptation and associated threats followed three steps: We first devel-
oped a multiclass suitability distribution model that distinguished dif-
ferent agro-climatic zones with distinct climatic properties. Second,
these zones were validated and aligned with conceptions of ecological
zones in Ghana in expert workshops. Third, understanding the fate of
each of the agro-climatic zones in future climate conditions is the basis
to enable the link to site specific adaptation strategies.
Agro-climatic zones for cocoa production in Ghana were defined
using a combination of interpolated climate data from WorldClim
(Hijmans et al., 2005) and a database of occurrences of cocoa produc-
tion. The Random Forest algorithm (RF) (Breiman, 2001) was used to
identify climate clusters within the occurrence data. RFs have the
capability of predicting several classes and may be used to extrapolate
C. Bunn, et al.
their spatial distribution under current and future climate (Bunn et al.,
2015; Moriondo et al., 2013). Ghanaian experts of the Cocoa Research
Institute of Ghana (CRIG) evaluated and verified cocoa occurrence data
for model input, suggested soil variables for modeling use, aligned agro-
climatic zone descriptions with their conceptions and confirmed the
validity of the resulting model.
2.1. Database of locations of cocoa
We collected data of the current distribution of cocoa to define the
climates that are suitable for cultivation. The data came from four
sources:
1. Läderach et al. (2013) compiled 294 occurrence locations from ex-
isting databases, maps, expert knowledge and field missions where
coordinates were gathered using a Global Positioning System (GPS).
2. Schroth et al. (2016) determined cocoa growing areas in West Africa
as reported in the Atlas on Regional Integration in West Africa
(ECOWAS, 2007). From within these areas 558 occurrence locations
were sampled on a 0.3 degree grid.
3. GPS coordinates of Rainforest Alliance project locations and training
sites.
4. GPS coordinates of CRIG research project sites.
The raw database contained 2914 geo-referenced locations growing
cocoa in Ghana. Cocoa farms are often small and the occurrence data
may be highly clustered, which may affect model performance nega-
tively. Spatial filtering has been shown to be an effective method to
reduce sampling bias (Kramer-Schadt et al., 2013). We reduced the
database to unique pixel cells on a five arc-minute grid, which we call
“occurrence pixels”. In addition, we removed as outliers sites for which
one or more environmental variables exceeded 3.5 standard deviations
from the mean. From the resulting data we further removed several
sites at the margins of the area defined by Schroth et al. (2016) because
they were unfeasible according to CRIG experts. 259 occurrence pixels
remained (Fig. 1) that were confirmed correct by CRIG experts.
2.2. Climate data
For the current climate (1950–2000), we used the WorldClim data
sets at 5 and 0.5 arc-minute resolution (Hijmans et al., 2005). World-
Clim provides data of monthly precipitation, mean monthly minimum
and maximum temperatures, and 19 bioclimatic variables derived from
these data. For our analysis, we used 19 bioclimatic variables and
complemented these with another derived variable of consecutive
Fig. 1. Distribution of validated occurrence pixels. Each dot represents a unique
georeference of confirmed cocoa production.
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Climate Services 16 (2019) 100123
months with less than 100 mm precipitation (Table 1). A short dry
season induces uniform flowering, dry periods longer than three
months are considered harmful for the trees (Lass and Wood, 1985).
For climate conditions in the period 2040 to 2069 (2050s) we used
data from 19 global circulation models (GCMs) (Table 2) from the Fifth
Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) (Stocker et al., 2013). The data was downscaled using
the delta method (Ramirez and Jarvis, 2010). This approach computes
the difference between model outputs for current and future conditions,
interpolates the data to 0.5 arc-minutes resolution and the resulting
delta is added to the WorldClim current climate data. The bioclimatic
variables can then be calculated for all future GCM outputs.
We chose the representative concentration pathway (RCP) 6.0, an
intermediate scenario in which radiative forcing continues to increase
until the end of the century (Fujino et al., 2006), because with current
emissions trajectories few scenarios appear possible that may result in
extreme radiative forcing pathways (RCP 8.5 and 2.6) (Riahi et al.,
2017) so that an intermediate RCP is an appropriate choice for adap-
tation guidance. For adaptation of a perennial crop mid-century is a
relevant time scale, at which time less difference can be found between
the potential impact of different mitigation pathways than between
global climate models (Stocker et al., 2013) so that our choice covers
most uncertainty from climate projections.
2.3. Agro-climatic zones for cocoa production
We used Random Forests (RF) (Breiman, 2001) to estimate the re-
lationship between climate, soil and cocoa distribution. RFs are ma-
chine-learning classifiers that are formed by ensembles of classification
trees. We used the random Forest package (Liaw and Wiener, 2002) in
the statistical software R (R Core Team, 2014) that implements the RF
approach. We used RFs in three distinct applications: (1) we used RF in
an unsupervised variation to produce a dissimilarity measure to group
occurrence locations into clusters with similar agro-climatic char-
acteristics, (2) using the resulting groups from (1) as response variable
we used RF to classify layers of climate and soil data of current and
future conditions, (3) finally, the RF classifier was used to evaluate
projected climatic changes in the different impact zones.
2.4. Definition of climate types for cocoa production
Agro-ecological zoning (AEZ) is a common tool to identify analo-
gous environments, to prioritize interventions, and can be useful to
investigate impact of climate change (Bunn et al., 2015; Fischer et al.,
2002). In our case, we developed agro-climatic zones by identifying
groups with common climate characteristics in the occurrence data
using RF clustering (Shi and Horvath, 2006). The unsupervised problem
of suitability type definition from ungrouped occurrence locations can
be turned into a supervised one by using artificial class labels to dis-
tinguish the original unlabeled data from synthetic data drawn from a
reference distribution (Shi and Horvath, 2006). RF produces a measure
of dissimilarity that when used as input for partitioning around medoid
(PAM) clustering instead of common Euclidean distances results in
biologically meaningful groupings (Shi and Horvath, 2006).
We used bioclimatic variables isothermality, mean maximum tem-
perature of the warmest month, mean temperature, precipitation sea-
sonality, precipitation of the driest and coldest quarters (Bioclim 3, 5, 9,
15, 17, and 19) for clustering. These variables were found to be phy-
siologically meaningful for cocoa production by Ghanaian experts. RF
prediction rules are useful even for correlated variables (Boulesteix
et al., 2012). The number of cluster centers for PAM was determined
using the Calinski and Harabasz (Caliński and Harabasz, 1974) index
and evaluation of a cluster dendrogram. Agro-climatic zone descrip-
tions were based on the differences of the group means from the grand
mean for a subset of variables and their confidence intervals as calcu-
lated by R’s multcomp package (Bretz et al., 2010).
C. Bunn, et al. Climate Services 16 (2019) 100123

Table 1
Bioclimatic variables used and mean values at current occurrence locations in Ghana under current, and 2050s conditions; the values for 2050s were calculated as
mean impact across 19 GCMs.
Type Bioclimatic variable Description Current Mean 2050s Mean Unit

Temperature BIO 1 Annual Mean Temperature 26,2 27,7 °C

BIO 2 Mean Diurnal Range (Mean of monthly (max temp - min temp)) 9,1 8,6 °C
BIO 3 Isothermality (BIO2/BIO7) (*100) 72 70 –
BIO 4 Temperature Seasonality (standard deviation *100) 103,7 109,8
BIO 5 Max Temperature of Warmest Month 33,1 34,5 °C
BIO 6 Min Temperature of Coldest Month 20,6 22,3 °C
BIO 7 Temperature Annual Range (BIO5-BIO6) 12,5 12,2 °C
BIO 8 Mean Temperature of Wettest Quarter 26,5 27,6 °C
BIO 9 Mean Temperature of Driest Quarter 26,6 28,2 °C
BIO 10 Mean Temperature of Warmest Quarter 27,4 29,1 °C
BIO 11 Mean Temperature of Coldest Quarter 24,7 26,2 °C

Precipitation BIO 12 Annual Precipitation 1453 1476 mm

BIO 13 Precipitation of Wettest Month 234 235 mm
BIO 14 Precipitation of Driest Month 22 21 mm
BIO 15 Precipitation Seasonality (Coefficient of Variation) 53 55 –
BIO 16 Precipitation of Wettest Quarter 570 575 mm
BIO 17 Precipitation of Driest Quarter 117 113 mm
BIO 18 Precipitation of Warmest Quarter 335 329 mm
BIO 19 Precipitation of Coldest Quarter 361 382 mm
BIO 20 Number of Consecutive Months < 100 mm precipitation 3,63 3,63 –

Table 2 the occurrence pixels to exclude unfeasible locations (Barbet-Massin

List of global climate models used to model future climate conditions.
bcc_csm1_1 gfdl_cm3 ipsl_cm5a_lr mri_cgcm3
bcc_csm1_1_m gfdl_esm2g miroc_esm ncar_ccsm4
cesm1_cam5 gfdl_esm2m miroc_esm_chem ncc_noresm1_m
csiro_mk3_6_0 giss_e2_h miroc_miroc5 nimr_hadgem2_ao
fio_esm giss_e2_r mohc_hadgem2_es
2.5. Agro-climatic zone distribution
RF was applied to classify the climate data for Ghana into the agro-
climatic zones for cocoa. The suitability of a site for cocoa production is
not only defined by its climate, but also by soil attributes. Cocoa experts
from CRIG therefore suggested including such information in the agro-
climatic zone mapping. Our classification model therefore used the 20
bioclimatic variables (Table 1). In addition, we included a soil variable
from several soil attributes using RF classification focusing on soil at-
tributes that provide resilience against adverse climatic events and la-
belled the variable Soil Resilience Capacity (SRC). Such an approach
has previously been shown to improve model skill (Piikki et al., 2017).
The SRC variable was developed by implementing a supervised binary
classification approach based on the assumption that cocoa is cultivated
at locations with appropriate soils. As input we obtained 122 soil
variables from the African Soils Information Service (Leenaars et al.,
2015) and cocoa experts prioritized a subset of 44 variables that are
meaningful for cocoa Supplementary materials).
For the agro-climatic zoning, we firsttrained RF with random sam-
ples from each climate type of occurrence pixels and a random back-
ground sample of pixels within Ghana that did not have cocoa. From the
occurrence pixels in each agro-climatic zone, we selected samples of the
same size of the smallest suitability group. Such reduction of ecological
sampling bias has been shown to improve the capacity of niche based
approaches to correctly predict species distributions (Varela et al.,
2014).
The background sample had a size twice that of the smallest climate
group. For binary classification problems a 1:1 sampling ratio is re-
commended to avoid the preferential prediction of the majority class
(Barbet-Massin et al., 2012). The sampling ratio we chose accounted for
the trade-off between the multi-class agro-climatic zone classification,
as well as the binary classification in suitable classes and unsuitable
background locations. We constrained the background samples to
contain only pixels with annual mean temperatures within the range as
et al., 2012). We used all 20 bioclimatic variables as independent
variables and the SRC variable as presented above.
For each RF model, we grew 1000 decision trees with seven vari-
ables selected at each node. Trees were grown to full size. We followed
the recommendation to increase the number of trees until the predic-
tion error of independent runs stabilizes (Boulesteix et al., 2012). To
make the process more robust we trained 25 RF classifiers. We drew
five random samples from the entire population of occurrence pixels,
from each of which we drew five random subsamples of 80% of the
sample.
We extrapolated the classifiers onto maps of the bioclimatic vari-
ables and determined the modal value across all 25 model results. We
obtained maps of each cocoa agro-climatic zone plus class “0″ back-
ground sites where cocoa is unlikely to be cultivated for current and
future climate data. The most likely future agro-climatic zone was de-
termined for each pixel by the mode across the results for the 19 GCMs.
2.6. Identification of climatic threats
In addition to the recommendation domains of common degree of
impact, we evaluated potential hazards which may cause the projected
impacts. We reviewed the climate risks that farmer innovations try to
manage (Adjewodah, 2016) and matched them with changes in bio-
climatic variables. We found that innovations address problems to
cocoa production from low/high rainfall, drought, high temperatures
and prolonged dry season. We used the following indicator variables:
low/high rainfall- Bio 12 (total precipitation); drought – Bio 17 (pre-
cipitation in driest quarter), Bio 9 (mean temperature of driest quarter),
and Bio 20 (consecutive months with less than 100 mm precipitation);
high temperatures – Bio 1 (annual mean temperature), Bio 5 (max
temperature of the warmest month), Bio 10 (mean temperature of
warmest quarter); and prolonged dry season - Bio 20 (consecutive
months with less than 100 mm precipitation).
For each of these threats we used RF to evaluate whether changes in
indicator variables will be positive or negative for cocoa production.
We trained RF to estimate the probability whether a location is part of
the occurrence or background group of samples, using the indicator
variables as independents. In 25 repeats, we trained 100 trees on 50%
of the entire population. To avoid overconfident classification despite
the small number of variables we limited the number of nodes to four.
We then applied the RF classifiers to current and future climate data as

4
C. Bunn, et al.
before. For each recommendation domain, we evaluated whether pro-
jected changes were positive, unchanged, negative, or beyond lower
current limits. The current lower limit was defined by the 10th per-
centile of probabilities at occurrence locations.
2.7. Model uncertainty
Model uncertainty was evaluated by estimating the model agree-
ment across all independent classification repeats and GCMs. If agree-
ment on the majority class was below 60% the zone was labeled
“mixed”. For current conditions, model agreement was assessed across
the 25 individual repeats of model training. Therefore, for a pixel cell to
be classified into any of the suitability types at least 15 classification
steps had to agree on the same class. For future conditions, we repeated
the classification for the outputs of 19 GCMs. Model agreement was
therefore assessed across 19*25 = 475 individual classification out-
comes of which at least 285 had to agree in order to indicate a agro-
climatic zone. If however, the modal classification was any one of the
agro-climatic zones, rather than of the “unsuitable” class, but less than
60% of repeats agreed to which zone, the respective pixel cell was still
classified as suitable, and labelled “uncertain”.
Where the modal classification outcome was of the unsuitable class,
but less than 95% of the models agreed, the suitability class “limita-
tions” was assigned. Thus, grid cells of the suitability class “limitations”
are most likely unsuitable, but at least two model repeats, or up to 12
model repeats, disagreed and classified these cells as suitable. For fu-
ture conditions, at least 24 of the 475 models had to disagree with the
“unsuitable” classification, or up to 237.
To demonstrate the effect of uncertainty from different GCM pro-
jections we picked a representative subset of six GCMs. We determined
annual mean temperature and annual precipitation across Ghana for
current and future conditions and ranked GCMs by the degree of
change. The six GCMs chosen represent extreme changes in precipita-
tion and mean temperature (Table 3).
2.8. Validation
Evaluation of species distribution models from machine learning
algorithms is commonly done by using the area under the receiver
operating characteristic curve (AUC). However, this measure is often
misleading (Lobo et al., 2008) and not meaningful where a potential
distribution is evaluated (Merow et al., 2013). When presented with
different models biological knowledge of the species should be taken
into account during model evaluation (Mainali et al., 2015). An alter-
native method is to use regional expert knowledge to evaluate model
performance (Uusitalo et al., 2015). This concept follows the idea of a
participatory research methodology (Bergold and Thomas, 2012;
Cornwall and Jewkes, 1995; Pain and Kindon, 2007) where research is
carried out by inclusion of local experts. These local experts are sta-
keholders in Ghanaian cocoa production and provide local knowledge
and experience.
All input data, intermediate and final results were subjected to
evaluation of a panel of regional cocoa experts from the Cocoa Research
Institute of Ghana (CRIG). Experts were invited because of their
knowledge on the ecophysiology of cocoa production in Ghana. In a
Table 3
Representative set of global climate models and projected climatic changes in Ghana.
GCM Annual mean temperature change in °C Annual total precipitation change in mm
miroc_esm 1.1 46
csiro_mk3_6_0 1.9 −80
giss_e2_h 1.4 123
ipsl_cm5a_lr 2.6 14
miroc_miroc5 1.6 154
gfdl_cm3 2.3 93
5
Climate Services 16 (2019) 100123
series of meetings over the course of a week, the experts were presented
with preliminary input data and intermediate model results. For this
purpose map data was complemented with village locations to provide
orientation. Following the experts’ suggestions input data and model
parameters were adapted to improve the alignment of model projec-
tions and expert knowledge.
In addition, following a suggestion by the expert panel we compared
our modeled distribution of agro-climatic zones with a map of historic
canopy types (Hall and Swaine, 1981). Commonly the distribution of
cocoa production in Ghana is described by the natural vegetation dis-
tribution and canopy type (Hall and Swaine, 1981). Especially the re-
gions with moist semi-deciduous or moist evergreen canopy are major
cocoa production zones. As natural vegetation is to some part shaped by
climatic conditions, this model has previously been used to distinguish
agro-ecological zones of cocoa production.
Finally, the current distribution was validated using the multiclass
area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) (Hand and
Till, 2001) as implemented in the R package “pROC” (Robin et al.,
2011). The AUC assumes values 0 – 1. An AUC of 0.5 indicates that the
performance was no better than random sampling, while 1.0 is perfect
classification. This definition of the AUC measure can be extended to
multiclass problems by averaging all pairwise AUC comparisons to a
multiclass AUC (Hand and Till, 2001). We used this measure to evaluate
the discrimination of agro-climatic zones by the RF classifier.
2.9. Recommendation domains by degree of impact
Finally, the recommendation domains were defined by the quality
of change between agro-climatic zones under current conditions, and
future conditions in each of the 19 GCM projections. We defined the
domain “incremental adaptation” where the climate zone was not
projected to change; “systemic adaptation” where one zone changed to
another agro-climatic zone, “transformational adaptation” where a
previously suitable zone likely becomes unsuitable for cocoa, and
“systemic resilience” where GCM uncertainty was high. Along this
gradient, we provided an assessment of potential climate stressors to
cocoa production.
3. Results
3.1. Definition of climate suitability types
Metrics to guide the number of climate clusters in the occurrence
data suggested four distinct agro-climatic clusters. We named the agro-
climatic zones in a North-South order from 1 to 4 after extrapolation.
For expert-selected climate variables, we compared the confidence in-
tervals for each cluster resulting from RF classification to the grand
mean (Fig. 2). Differences to the grand mean of all occurrence locations
were used to describe the climate types as follows:
• Cluster 1 had near average conditions except for elevated tem-
peratures during the driest quarter and an even distribution of
precipitation throughout the year (low precipitation seasonality).
This cluster belongs to the agro-climatic zone3, typical for the
Eastern region.
Temp. rank Temp. label Prec. rank Prec. label
1/19 Cool 12/19 Interm.
15/19 Hot 1/19 Dry
3/19 Cool 18/19 Wet
19/19 Hot 6/19 Interm.
6/19 Interm. 19/19 Wet
17/19 Hot 16/19 Wet
C. Bunn, et al.
Fig. 2. Contrast plots of group confidence intervals to grand mean; confidence intervals for each cluster are shown relative to the grand mean (dotted line), the
average value is given below each plot, the x-axis indicates the deviation; number of cluster groups is not identical with suitability types.
• Cluster 2 had average temperatures but low annual precipitation
and a strong dry season (very low precipitation in the driest quarter
and the highest number of dry months). This cluster belongs to the
agro-climatic zone1, typical for Southern Brong Ahafo.
• Cluster 3 had the lowest diurnal temperature range, a high annual
average temperature and a weak dry season (short, with compara-
tively high precipitation in the driest quarter) with high annual
precipitation. This is the agro-climatic zone4, which spans the South
of the cocoa region in Ghana.
• Cluster 4 had comparatively low temperatures and average pre-
cipitation, but the dry season is quite long. This is the agro-climatic
zone2, which can be found in the Ashanti region.
3.2. Distribution of agro-climatic zones for cocoa under current and future
conditions
Extrapolation of the RF classifiers on current climate data resulted
in maps of the spatial distribution of the four cocoa agro-climatic zones
(Fig. 3A). The northern type 1 zone has low annual precipitation and a
strong dry season. Central Ashanti is of the second agro-climatic zone
with cooler temperatures and a rather long dry season. The Eastern
region is characterized by the third agro-climatic zone with higher
temperatures and reliable precipitation. The south (Western and Cen-
tral region) can be described with the fourth agro-climatic zone with
high temperatures and precipitation. Between agro-climatic zones,
patches of the “mixed” climate zone could be observed where the
suitability classification was uncertain. At the margins of these agro-
climatic zones area with limitations for cocoa production could be
found. In these regions, a majority of model repeats suggested that this
area is unsuitable, but some model repeats disagreed and classified this
area as suitable (Fig. 3A).
This model of distribution of climate zones overlapped partially
with the distribution of natural vegetation (Hall and Swaine, 1981) that
was previously used to describe agro-ecological zones of cocoa
6
Climate Services 16 (2019) 100123
production in Ghana. The type 1 zone overlapped largely with the moist
semi-deciduous north western zone. The moist semi-deciduous south
eastern type zone is largely covered by the type 3 agro-climatic zone.
Between the type 1 and type 3 zones, the type 2 zone spans parts of both
semi-deciduous zones. The fourth agro-climatic zone corresponded with
the moist evergreen zone. Both the dry semi-deciduous zones and the
wet evergreen zone were classified to have strong limitations for cocoa
production (Fig. 3A).
By the 2050s in the RCP 6.0 emissions scenario, nearly the entire
type 1 agro-climatic zone will become unsuitable for cocoa production
or will show strong limitations. The Ashanti region that is currently
relatively cool will increasingly be of a mixed climate type. The type 4
climate zone in the Western and Central region expands into the Eastern
region (Fig. 3B) which under current conditions was a type 3 zone. The
area with limitations along the margins of the main agro-climatic zones
that under current conditions overlapped with the dry semi-deciduous
zones becomes unsuitable. The area with limitations in the wet ever-
green zone remains equally challenged.
The average ability of the RF algorithm to discriminate agro-cli-
matic zones was satisfactorily high on the consensus map, with the
multiclass AUC averaging 0.82 which is much better than chance. The
conventional AUC measure averaged 0.75, which demonstrates the
robustness of the algorithm to discriminate between suitable and un-
suitable pixel cells.
3.3. Expert workshop results
All input data, intermediate and final results were subjected to
evaluation of a panel of regional cocoa experts from the Cocoa Research
Institute of Ghana (CRIG). According to feedback from the panel, un-
feasible locations were eliminated from the occurrence data and addi-
tional data from CRIG was added to the final dataset (Fig. 1). The cli-
mate variables to describe agro-climatic zones were defined based on
the recommendations by the panel. In addition, a soils suitability
C. Bunn, et al.
variable was added to the climate variables because experts argued that
suitable soils may provide resilience against adverse climate conditions.
The relevant soil attributes for this purpose were picked by CRIG ex-
perts. Finally, the resulting agro-climatic zoning for current climate
conditions was discussed with the expert panel. The experts agreed that
it correctly described the current production zones of cocoa in Ghana
and suggested the overlap with the canopy type based ecological
zoning.
3.4. Model uncertainty
We differentiated two sources of uncertainty: the agreement be-
tween individually trained classifiers and the agreement between global
climate models. We made the agreement between classifiers explicit by
including the “mixed” and the “limitations” climate zones.
Nevertheless, it was insightful to compare the model agreement for
current and future climate conditions. For current conditions, between
patches of high model agreement areas with low or no model agree-
ment could be found. Towards the margins model agreement was also
low (Fig. 4). This area was reported as “limitations” before. The patches
of model disagreement within the cocoa zone were “mixed” climate
zones. Areas with high model agreement areas were reported as the
climate zones.
This interpretation changed with future conditions. For the 2050s,
we found model agreement to be lower. For most of the suitable climate
zones, no clear classification outcome can be shown. The North of the
7
Climate Services 16 (2019) 100123
Fig. 3. Distribution of agro-climatic zones for cocoa
production in Ghana in the A) current climate, B)
across 19GCMs in the RCP 6.0 by the 2050s. Colored
patches represent the different climate types. Light
yellow represents area of classification uncertainty,
grey areas were found to be unsuitable but with high
uncertainty. Thick black lines in (A) show the bor-
ders of canopy zones adapted from Hall and Swaine
(1981) with the following abbreviations: WE = Wet
Evergreen; ME = Moist Evergreen; MS = Moist
Semi-deciduous (NW = North-west subtype;
SE = South-east subtype); DS = Dry Semi-decid-
uous. (For interpretation of the references to color in
this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web
version of this article.)
Western region and most of Ashanti also showed very high model un-
certainty (F REF _Ref12651057 \h Fig. 4). On the other hand, model
agreement was high for Southern Brong Ahafo and parts of the Eastern
region.
A comparison of the climate zone classification of a representative
set of GCMs showed that most uncertainty was caused by disagreement
between GCMs (Fig. 4). All GCM projections agreed that the type 4
agro-climatic zone with its high temperatures and high precipitation
will be the dominant agro-climatic zone in the future: it is likely to
retain area in the Western region, and the agro-climatic zone 3 was
projected to change to zone 4. Equally high agreement of GCMs pro-
jected losses of suitable area in Brong Ahafo. The exception was the
giss_e2_h GCM, a wet scenario with moderate temperature increases
and a high precipitation increase. The largest uncertainty from GCMs
could be observed in the Ashanti region. Most scenarios projected that
this region remains suitable, but disagree on the agro-climatic zone in
future decades. In a similar pattern, the future of the Volta region re-
mained uncertain (Fig. 4).
Thus, we found that the projected loss of suitable area in Brong
Ahafo was highly certain. The change from type 3 to type 4 climate in
the west of the Eastern region was also highly certain. The change of the
extent of the type 4 agro-climatic zone in the Western and Central re-
gion was of intermediate certainty. The future climate in the North of
the Western region and Ashanti was highly uncertain. GCM uncertainty
in this region did not permit an unambiguous classification.
C. Bunn, et al.
Fig. 4. Top: classification uncertainty for the current and future time slices. Bottom: distribution of suitability zones in the 2050s (RCP 6.0) by global climate model.
3.5. Gradient of climate change impacts
We derived a gradient of impacts from these projected changes and
GCM model agreement. The gradient showed that Southern Brong
Ahafo, Northern Ashanti and the North and South of Volta will become
transformation zones. These areas were classified as no longer suitable
by the RF classifier. The Northern half of the central cocoa production
zone (Northern Ashanti, Northern Western region and most of the Volta
region) was classified as a zone with little certainty of climate projec-
tions. The main adaptation strategy would therefore require an increase
of resilience by systemic change. In Southern Ashanti, the Eastern
8
Climate Services 16 (2019) 100123
region and the Southern margin will require systemic change because a
change of one climate zone to another was projected (Fig. 5).
For other parts of the country, the climate change signal was found
to be less significant. The Southern stretch of the current production
zone was projected to remain in the same climate zone so that no
fundamental changes in agronomic practices will be necessary due to
climate change. Incremental adaptation is the dominant strategy. Only
few sites were projected to become suitable because of climate change.
Some locations at the margins of the currently suitable area may be-
come suitable but with strong limitations.
C. Bunn, et al. Climate Services 16 (2019) 100123

Fig. 5. Recommendation domains to scale adaptation strategies by degree of impact in the consensus across 19 GCMs in the RCP 6.0 scenario.

3.6. Climate threats by recommendation domain
For each recommendation domain we evaluated changes in biocli-
matic variables and their potential to result in the projected degrees of
impact. Specifically, we considered increasing or decreasing risk of
low/high rainfall, drought, high temperatures or prolonged dry season.
We assigned probability scores for whether a location will have suitable
or unsuitable risk conditions. The 10th percentile at presence locations
was taken as threshold below which conditions are risky. Table 4
summarizes the scores.
The projections for precipitation variables were mixed between
GCMs. For low/high rainfall and prolonged dry season some GCMs
point to improved conditions, while others project riskier conditions.
The transformation zone was characterized by suitability scores near
the lower end. Therefore, any reduction in precipitation or extension of
the dry season will result in a critical change. These projections were
different for the incremental or systemic change zones. Projected
changes were not found to be below current suitable values, but posi-
tive changes may occur in about half of GCM projections. The systemic
resilience zone was projected with a slightly higher likelihood of ne-
gative changes.
When taking into account temperature variables the result was more
certain: For most recommendation domains, GCMs projected drought
risk that would be considered unsuitable for cocoa under current con-
ditions. The risk of high temperatures will also increase in all scenarios
beyond current suitable values.
4. Discussion
Climate change impact assessments should be able to support sta-
keholders in the development of adequate adaptation strategies. We
demonstrated how a machine-learning modeling framework can be
used to develop impact based recommendation domains. We employed
an agro-climatic zoning approach that was validated by local experts to
frame the impact assessment in local climate heuristics. Together with
the identification of projected hazards, our recommendation domains
will improve the ability of stakeholders to scale out site-specific adap-
tion strategies and dissemination of farmer innovation. The impact
assessment itself is in line with previous projections in that it showed a
potential reduction in suitable area towards the Savanna in the North of
the cocoa belt (Läderach et al., 2013; Schroth et al., 2016), but also that
with targeted adaptation measures Ghana may remain a major cocoa
producer into the future. However, our modeling approach went be-
yond previous binary suitability classifications that were hard to

Table 4
Percent of GCMs that project increasing or decreasing climate threats for each recommendation domain.
GCM projection

Drought High temperatures

Adaptation zone Unsuitable Reduced Unchanged Improved Unsuitable Reduced Unchanged Improved

Transform 100 100 0 0 100 100 0 0

Resilience 100 100 0 0 100 100 0 0
Change 95 100 0 0 100 100 0 0
Incremental 89 100 0 0 100 100 0 0
Opportunity 100 100 0 0 100 100 0 0

GCM projection

Prolonged dry season Total precipitation

Adaptation zone Unsuitable Reduced Unchanged Improved Unsuitable Reduced Unchanged Improved

Transform 95 79 0 21 79 42 0 58
Resilience 26 47 5 47 11 42 11 47
Change 0 37 11 53 0 47 5 47
Incremental 0 5 37 58 0 63 37 0
Opportunity 16 21 74 5 5 26 5 68

9
C. Bunn, et al.
interpret by stakeholders by demonstrating how different climate zones
of cocoa production will be affected. Describing the climatic properties
of the zones and their fate in future scenarios makes it easier for sta-
keholders to understand the differential effects of otherwise similar
GCM projections.
The threats from climate change by recommendation domain that
we identified concurred with previously described threats to cocoa
production. For example, dry season temperatures were hypothesized
to negatively affect changes of crop suitability near the Savanna tran-
sition zone in Western Africa (Schroth et al., 2016). Our observation
that dry season conditions will be less suitable for cocoa production in
the future in all zones is similar to the projected loss of suitability across
the cocoa belt by Läderach et al. (2013). While a dry season induces
uniform flowering, overall yields are higher without such a period
(Zuidema et al., 2005). In addition, we here point out the potential
effects of rising temperatures. High temperatures induce faster leaf
growth, ageing and abscission possibly caused by high maintenance
respiration rates (Almeida and Valle, 2007). High temperatures may
also further reduce transpiration rates (Amorim and Valle, 1992) when
in the dry season net carbon assimilation is already reduced (Carr and
Lockwood, 2011). The increased temperatures could thus aggravate the
effects even of an otherwise unchanged dry season.
In the core cocoa zone, projected annual total precipitation was
equally likely to decrease or increase in our analysis. For cocoa this
makes it difficult to evaluate the benefits of adaptation strategies to
address potential hazards because the seasonal distribution and total
availability of precipitation are the dominant yield determining factors
(Zuidema et al., 2005). Every GCM should be considered an equally
likely scenario (Burke et al., 2015) and we stated this uncertainty in our
analysis in a coherent way. Other authors pointed to a slight increase of
annual total precipitation when averaging over GCMs, to argue that dry
season temperatures (for which GCMs agree on the direction of change)
will be more important for future suitability (Schroth et al., 2016).
While this may be true for the Western African cocoa belt as a whole,
our analysis showed that for the high impact domain towards the Sa-
vanna margins in Ghana precipitation projection agreement was better.
A majority of GCM scenarios agreed that the future seasonality of
precipitation will be more pronounced, and that dry season character-
istics may pose unsustainable stress to the cocoa tree.
Additionally, our validation process ensured that the re-
commendation domains are meaningful to stakeholders and biologi-
cally valid. Our motivation to use expert validation was to improve our
ability to interpret impacts within the local context (Corner et al.,
2018). Describing the agro-climatic zones in terms of climate variables
that are used by experts within Ghana will make the zones relatable to
their specific agronomic knowledge. This facilitates the development of
adaptation strategies for the recommendation domains using existing
cultivation practices. Furthermore, test statistics are harder to interpret
than a confident value suggests (Lobo et al., 2008) and biological
knowledge needs to be considered in model evaluation (Mainali et al.,
2015). Our finding that the spatial distribution of agro-climatic zones in
our model reproduced canopy-type zones (Hall and Swaine, 1981) that
were previously used to define ecological zones for cocoa production is
therefore a validation approach that was credible to local experts and
immediately demonstrated the biophysical relevance of the classifica-
tion. Similar approaches should be considered where the communica-
tion of projected impacts is of interest, because doing so will make it
easier to relate abstract modeling exercises to concrete decision heur-
istics used in the local context, as is recommended for effective com-
munication (Corner et al., 2018).
We chose a simple color coding for the recommendation domain
maps: green for low adaptation needs, yellow for systemic adaptation,
orange for high uncertainty zones and red where transformative
adaptation may be needed. This scheme was highly suggestive, and may
not be optimal in all cases. For example, the green of the incremental
adaptation domain might suggest that no adaptation will be required,
10
Climate Services 16 (2019) 100123
which is not the case. Changes of precipitation and higher temperatures
will require confronting changed pest and disease patterns, inefficient
agronomic practices or changed variability. On the other extreme, the
transformation domain will require expansive adaptation efforts to
sustain cocoa, or to facilitate a non-catastrophic transition to other li-
velihoods. However, the chosen “red” may imply an abandonment of
affected farmers by their customary relationships in the cocoa.
Another question is to which degree uncertainty should be disclosed
when presenting climate model results. We included two types of un-
certainty explicitly in the map outputs: from the classification algorithm
and the GCM projections. Both sources of uncertainty have different
implications for adaptation. The increasing inability of the algorithm to
clearly identify a specific agro-climatic zone under future conditions
can be explained by the emergence of novel climates in the region. Such
novel climates will predominantly appear in the core cocoa zone and to
a lesser extent in the Savanna zone (Radeloff et al., 2015). Thus, even
where the algorithm concluded that such climates are likely similar to
suitable locations, the lack of historic analogues impedes the develop-
ment of adapted production systems. This difficulty increases ex-
ponentially where GCM uncertainty makes statements about future
precipitation impossible. We therefore think that showing uncertainty
made the resulting maps harder to interpret, but ultimately will be
more credible to stakeholders (Burke et al., 2015).
In summary, our analysis showed that in the incremental adaptation
domain known production systems may be adapted through minor
changes to practices that respond to increases in temperature and
precipitation which may harbor additional risk and changed pests and
diseases. In the systemic adaptation domain increasing precipitation
may make traditional knowledge about production practices obsolete
and farmers will have to make comprehensive adjustments to their
systems. In the domain where climate models showed high uncertainty,
we suggest to increase the resilience of the farming system to respond to
an unknown future. Such adaptation may include a diversification of
crops, or comprehensive measures to respond to increasing drought.
Finally, our study and others have shown that towards the transition
zone with the Savanna a transformation of cocoa systems may be ne-
cessary. Such transformation may include the development of alter-
native value chains or novel cocoa systems that are viable under con-
ditions that would in the past be considered hostile for cocoa, for
example by breeding new varieties, efficient survival irrigation, and the
establishment of fire breaks.
The climate data that we used compared thirty-year average cli-
matologies. However, smallholders often have immediate challenges to
their food and income security. The changing likelihood of extreme
precipitation and temperature events can therefore be more concerning
in this setting than long-term developments. This is exemplified by
farmers expanding their cocoa area in the transformation domain
knowingly accepting low yields and high seedling mortalities, because
of a lack of income alternatives (Asante et al., 2017). Similarly, also
some downstream stakeholders don’t consider long term climate change
relevant to their business performance because they are more pre-
occupied with securing short term supply (Sloan et al., 2019). Our work
is therefore most meaningful to actors for which the long-term per-
spective is relevant, for example research institutes, traders with long
established relationships with producers or companies that build their
brand value around the sustainability concept.
Our work provided the necessary background information to de-
velop potential pathways for sustainable cocoa production, but addi-
tional research into recommendation domains for changing climate
variability would be complementary to our work. Whereas sustain-
ability is the capacity of a system to function in the future, resilience to
shocks is considered the means to achieve this (Tendall et al., 2015).
Interventions that increase the system resilience by increasing the ca-
pacity to avoid damages from hazards, and its flexibility to recover will
depend on a thorough analysis of variability. Ideally, such research
would also consider market effects, as has been done for barley (Xie
C. Bunn, et al.
et al., 2018). Cocoa markets are highly volatile because of the inelastic
supply and the high geographical concentration of production (Oomes
et al., 2016). Changing climate variability in West Africa is therefore
likely to amplify uncertainty on cocoa markets globally, and as a result
would have repercussions for all stakeholders.
We conclude that the use of multi-class RF classification of agro-
climatic zones in combination with an expert validation process can
provide actionable recommendation domains to guide adaptation
strategies at scale. The approach combined a valid impact assessment
that required little input data, allowed for the explicit statement of
uncertainty but is interpretable for a wide audience of stakeholders.
Our approach would be relatively easy to replicate in other regions and
for other crops, where climate data is hard to interpret for stakeholders.
Involving experts facilitates the stakeholder dialogue and results in
more relatable impact assessments, which are a precondition for ef-
fective adaptation at scale.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work was implemented as part of the CGIAR Research Program
on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), which is
carried out with support from CGIAR Fund Donors and through bi-
lateral funding agreements. For details please visit https://ccafs.cgiar.
org/donors. The views expressed in this document cannot be taken to
reflect the official opinions of these organizations.
We benefited greatly from the substantial input by our colleagues at
the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) under the lead of Dr.
Amos Quaye. We are very grateful to Dr. Gilbert J. Anim-Kwapong in
his former position as executive Director of CRIG for his support. We are
also thankful for the contributions from COCOBOD, represented by Dr.
E. Tei Quartey and Eric Amengor.
The discussions with the panel of experts of Ghanaian cocoa pro-
duction that Dr. Amos Quaye put together were of very high value for
this project. This study would not have been possible without the ex-
pertise of CRIG Scientists and we would like to acknowledge the kind
support that was given to us by these CRIG Scientists, including A.
Afrifa, Fredrick Amon-Armah, G. Awudzi, Jerome Dogbatse, Esther
Gyan,and Sampson Kolan who were part of the core group. Other key
experts who were part of the core working group included Emmanuel
Amamoo-Otchere (GISD), Robert Asugre (IFDC), Williams Atakorah
(SARI), Rose Birago-Sefa (Tropenbos International) and Reuben Ottou
(SNV).
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