Refereed Journals

Once referred to as the ―"Garden city" of Africa, Kumasi is gradually losing her rich environmental features including trees and water bodies. This is largely due to increase in urban population leading to high quest for urban housing and infrastructure within the Metropolis. Moreover, lack of enforcement of by-laws concerning town planning regulations has allowed not only housing development but invasion of economic activities along wetlands in Kumasi. This paper is aimed at investigating conditions of houses in wetland areas of Sepe-Buokrom and Dichemso settlements in Kumasi Metropolitan area in the Ashanti Region. These settlements were used as case studies due to its regular high impact flood during rainy season. The study employed survey with photography, questionnaires and interviews to collect empirical data from households and property owners in the study area. It was revealed from the survey that, buildings have major structural defects with rising damp clearly visible on sand-cement rendered walls due to wet ground conditions. This has led to faster deterioration of building with maintenance issues. The study also revealed poor waste management and regular flood in the neighbourhood. The paper recommends that the city authority enforces regulations governing town planning to protect water ways and nature reserves in the city for sustainable development.

Utilisation of waste plastic materials as aggregates in concrete manufacturing could be a partial solution to the environmental and ecological challenges associated with the use and disposal of plastics. This study examines the possibility of using waste High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) as a partial replacement for coarse aggregate in concrete formulation at various plastic compositions (0%, 2%, 4%, 6% and 8% by weight of the coarse aggregate). Particle size distribution (PSD) and specific gravity tests were conducted for the plastic aggregates. The influence of the waste HDPE on the fresh and hardened state properties of the concrete, the workability, compressive and flexural strengths were investigated. The effect of water on the compressive strength of the composite was also determined for the various compositions. Results of various tests suggest that workability of the fresh concrete decreased with increasing plastic content, the compressive strength of the concrete decreased appreciably with increase in the plastic content and was found to be lower than normal concrete. The 28th day flexural strength decrease marginally with increase in plastic content in the concrete. Also the mass of water absorbed by the concrete samples increased with increasing plastic content. Despite the effects of waste HDPE on the various properties of the composite, results were all found to be within acceptable limits. Thus waste HDPE materials could be considered for use in formulation of concrete.

Utilitarian cycling constitutes an important formof travel in Northern Ghana. Although cycling provides
an indispensableway of reducing automobile pollution, traffic congestions andmeeting theminimumdaily
physical activity recommended for healthy living, limited cycling infrastructure is available in Northern Ghana. This situation has fostered the mixture of cycles and, fast and robust motorized vehicles on the roadways, thus presenting an ominous road safety condition. The objective of this research is to establish the injury severity and pattern among bicyclists in Northern Ghana.
Methodology: A ten-year (2005 to 2014) accident data from Ghana was analyzed for the Tamale, Bolgatanga and Wa Municipalities in Northern Ghana. Analysis was basic descriptive.

Results: During the decade, 253 cyclists' casualties occurred in the three cities out ofwhich, 51%was fatal, 35%was serious and 13% was minor injuries. Ninety-three percent of cyclists' accident victims were males. Cyclists were more likely to die when they collide with two or more vehicles, heavy goods vehicles or buses. Apparently, cyclists were not at fault in 58% of their casualty injuries while 25% and 7% were respectively attributable to carelessness and excessive speeding on the part of the cyclists. Also, of all the fatal cyclist's casualties, 64% of the riders (n=83) was not at fault while 23% and 6% were respectively attributable to cyclists' carelessness and speeding. Conclusion: Cycling has important health and environmental benefits to humanity. Nevertheless, more than 50% of cyclists involved in road crashes died through accidents, thus suggesting an important road safety concern. Improvement of cycle safety in Northern Ghana may be attained by building infrastructure such as cycle paths and demarcating lanes to physically separate cyclists frommotorized transport. Explicit policies such as the minimum passing distance policy may give a further boost to cycling safety in Ghana.

Motorists are communicated to in the road traffic environment by graphics, the level of clarity of which elicits correlating responses. The study observed motorist behaviour at a selected location, Briscol Y-junction in Kumasi, Ghana, which is typical of a visibility phenomenon. Motorists related independently to a gantry at the junction. Concealed passive neural processes precipitating motorist behaviour hardly gained consideration by traffic authorities. Consequently, negative reinforcement (as occurs in operant conditioning) robbed the motorist reason for his actions. The subsequent driving behaviour of the motorist is affected by the adjudication of traffic laws which rigidly considers inhibitory schemata as an infringement of the law. The study makes an exposition on the passive cause of traffic conflicts traceable to poor traffic communication. The paper hypothesizes on whether driver behaviour arising out of poor graphic traffic communication (GTC) may have an impact on road safety. Using observation as a qualitative phenomenological research method, motorist behaviour at the junction was examined. The psychological theory of operant conditioning propounded by BF Skinner was applied as a yardstick of probing motorist behaviour at the Briscol Y-Junction. This was complemented by the Schema Theory of motorist actions. A strata of 320 motorists who drove past the red light exhibited different behaviours traceable to their visibility level of GTC supported by their previous knowledge of the traffic environment. It was found that traffic management is unmindful of the concealed psychological, biological and neural processes that occur in the motorist as the cause of traffic conflicts. It was recommended that to help maintain motorist composure in subsequent driving situations, traffic audit and management should first ensure that all traffic communication features are properly situated and oriented at all times.