Refereed Journals

Lake Bosomtwe is a freshwater body located in the Ashanti region of Ghana. The lake is the habitat for large number of aquatic species and serves a great deal of recreation and tourism activities.Therefore,assessment of water quality and health of the lake is vital for its utilization, conservation and management. W ater samples were collected from ten (10) different locations inthe lake, processed and analyzed for water quality parameters: Temperature, electrical conductivity, pH, Na, Ca, mg, K, Zn, Cu, Alkalinity, Cl-, NH4+, NO3-, PO43-, SO42-, Hardness, DO, BOD, Total coliform, Faecal coliform and E. coli. The average values of the parameters above were: 32.5OC, 1281.8μs/cm, 8.85, 254mg/l, 2.95mg/l, 11.86mg/l, 42.71mg/l, 0.09mg/l, 0.04mg/l, 439.30mg/l, 94.86mg/l, 16.00mg/l, 0.73mg/l, 0.79mg/l, 5.57mg/l, 20.37mg/l, 7.27mg/l, 2.93mg/l, 3.50colonies/100ml, 2.90colonies/100ml and 3.80colonies/100ml respectively. The results showed that the water from the lakefell within the WHO guidelines for good recreational water except pH and alkalinity. It is therefore recommended that appropriate measures need to be taken to monitor these parameters to ensure sustainable use of the water resource as a recreation facility.

Wetlands were considered as waste lands for breeding mosquitoes, home for all kinds of shanty settlements with
no basic housing facilities. This study seeks to identify the effects of informal activities along wetland areas in Kumasi
metropolitan specifically Sepe-Buokrom- Dichemso areas. The study was in a form of case study covering Sepe-Buokrom and Dichemso areas in the Ashanti region of Ghana. Systematic sampling technique was employed to select the various informal activities within the area. The study revealed that the main informal economic activities within the communities were washing bays, mechanical workshops, petty trading, carpentry works, and etc. Majority of businesses operating along the selected areas had permit for their works. Flooding, poor environmental conditions and poor management of waste disposal were the effects of the activities along wetland areas. Malaria and typhoid were the most prevailing diseases within the study areas. Low cost of land and access to customers were some of the reasons people were operating their businesses along wetland areas. The study concludes that, wetlands in Kumasi are undergoing negative transformation and hence losing their social, economic and environmental values due to unsustainable activities including improper waste disposal and unplanned settlement.

The construction industry in Ghana is becoming efficient in the area of cost and achieving advance technologies. The effective management of cost enables clients, developers, and facilitators to achieve value for money. Concrete is a major component in every construction project. The use of precast concrete technology has been embraced by the construction industry in Ghana. This study seeks to analyze cost estimating of the structural frame (column and slab) by considering cast-in-place and precast concrete slabs and columns, respectively. Relative importance and Kendall’s concordance agreement were used to determine the rankings and agreement of advantages of using precast concrete. The study established that precast concrete slabs were on average 23.22% cheaper than the cast-in-place concrete elements and precast columns were averagely 21.4% less than cast-in-place concrete columns. The study established that professionals prefer the use of precast concrete products because of the life cycle cost.

Cost estimation is particularly difficult, often leading to considerable deviations. For capital projects, especially transport infrastructure projects, deviations hover around an average of 28% of the estimated cost. There are several factors that cause these deviations between the final accounts and the contract sum. How these factors combine to cause deviations between the contract sum and the final account in recent times has been of great concern to construction managers and researchers alike. This study sought to identify the significant factors that result in deviations between contract sums and the final accounts of capital projects. Using a sample size of 45, comprising contractors, consultants, and clients, the factors identified using Relative Important Indices were “price fluctuations,” “late material delivery,” “changes in the scope of work,” “fluctuations in the market demand,” and “changes in design.” Using Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, a coefficient value of 0.068 was obtained. As such, the null hypothesis was rejected as there was a level of agreement among the respondents. Again, based on a significance test run, 26 out of the 40 identified factors used for the analysis were seen to be significant in influencing the deviations between contract sums and final accounts figures.

Heat treated low-grade kaolin clays are now considered as a suitable pozzolanic material to metakaolins. However their suitabilityas a good pozzolanic material depends on the geochemistry and structure of the clay which is usually influenced by the geographicalenvironment. This study investigated a low-grade kaolin clay from Nyamebekyere in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The influence ofthe calcined material on the early and late strength development of Portland cement was analyzed. The early 3- and 7-day strengthas well as the late 28-day strength of Portland cement replaced with 20% by weight of the calcined material yielded the optimumstrength values. Further analysis using Solid State Magic Angle Spinning Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (Ss MAS NMR) probed intothe Aluminium (Al) environment to detect the presence and nature of Al hydrates using the optimum mixture proportion. The SsMAS NMR results showed that the strength enhancement of the optimum mixture was due to the growth of stable monosulphatecompounds at the octahedral environment resulting from metastable aluminate phases at the tetrahedral environment. For greaterreliability on concrete strength performance, the study recommends the use of 20% calcined clay of Nyamebekyere clay as Portlandcement replacement