Proceedings of the WABER 2015 Conference (Volume 2) (original) (raw)
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Proceedings of the West Africa Built Environment Research (WABER) Conference 2010
FOREWORD Welcome to this West Africa Built Environment Research (WABER) conference taking place here in Ghana. Thank you for coming and welcome to Accra. The main aims of the WABER conference are: to help young researchers and early-career scholars in West Africa to develop their research work and skills through constructive face-to-face interaction with experienced academics; to provide a platform for networking and collaborative work among senior built environment academics in West Africa; and to serve as a vehicle for developing the field of construction management and economics in Africa. Waber 2009 The WABER event in 2009 was held at the British Council in Accra, Ghana on 2-3 June. The event was a resounding success. It attracted participation from 32 researchers, from 12 different institutions, who presented their work to an audience of approximately 100 people. Each presenter received immediate and constructive feedback from an international panel. The event was opened by Professor K.K. Adarkwa, Vice Chancellor of KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana, with several senior academics and researchers from universities, polytechnics, and other institutions in Ghana and Nigeria in attendance. There was also a significant level of attendance by senior construction practitioners in Ghana. Thank you to the School of Construction Management and Engineering, University of Reading, UK for funding the inaugural event in 2009. We are also grateful to all of you who helped to make the event a success and to those of you who have joined us here today to build upon the success and legacy of WABER 2009. Waber 2010 This year, we have 60+ peer-reviewed papers and presentations on topics relating to Building services and maintenance, Construction costs, Construction design and technology, Construction education, Construction finance, Construction procurement, Contract administration, Contract management, Contractor development, Decision support systems, Dispute resolution, Economic development, Energy efficiency, Environment and sustainability, Health and safety, Human resources, Information technology, Marketing, Materials science, Organisation strategy and business performance, Productivity, Project management, Quantity surveying, Real estate and planning, Solar energy systems, Supply chain management and Urban development. We hope that these papers will generate interest among delagates and stimulate discussion here and beyond the conference into the wider community of academia and industry. The delegates at this conference come from 10 different countries. This provides a rich international and multicultural blend and a perfect platform for networking and developing collaborations. This year we are blessed to have three high profile keynote speakers in the persons of Professor George Ofori (National University of Singapore), Dr Roine Leiringer (University of Reading, UK) and Professor Will Hughes (University of Reading, UK). We are also thankful to Dr Chris Harty (University of Reading, UK) who is facilitating the Research Skills Workshop on ‘Writing a scientific article’. Thank you to Dr Sena Agyepong of our conference organising team for her capable management of local organising arrangements. And above all, thank you to all of you for coming to this conference. Enjoy and have a safe journey back home. Dr Samuel Laryea School of Construction Management and Engineering University of Reading, July 2010
Proceedings of the West Africa Built Environment Research (WABER) Conference 2011
Please visit www.waberconference.com for more information Declaration All papers in this publication have been through a review process involving initial screening of abstracts, review by at least two referees, reporting of comments to authors, modifications of papers by authors and re-evaluation of re-submitted papers to ensure quality of content.
2011
Declaration All papers in this publication have been through a review process involving initial screening of abstracts, review by at least two referees, reporting of comments to authors, modifications of papers by authors and re-evaluation of re-submitted papers to ensure quality of content. i FOREWORD Welcome to this year"s WABER conference in Accra, Ghana. Thank you for coming and we hope you enjoy the conference. The WABER conference has developed rapidly in the past three years, but our aims remain the same. We strive to: help young built environment researchers in West Africa (WA) to develop their research work and skills through constructive face-to-face interaction with their peers and experienced international academics; supply a platform for interaction among more senior academics and an outlet for disseminating their research work; and to serve as a vehicle for developing the built environment field in Africa. Three conferences have so far been organized, 2009-2011, bringing together nearly three hundred academics, researchers and practitioners from 50+ different institutions in WA. Through WABER, many young researchers have been helped to develop their research work and skills through constructive face-to-face interaction with experienced academics. We find this encouraging and we will continue to work together with colleagues in WA to develop initiatives that provide young researchers in WA with opportunities to develop their research potential and aspirations. This year"s conference proceedings consist of 95 papers. This represents around 50 percent of abstracts and full papers that were initially submitted. We congratulate the authors of papers that made it into the proceedings for a job well done. The published papers cover a wide array of topics including:
Built environment research in West Africa: Current trends and future directions
The countries in West Africa (WA) are pushing for socio-economic development. The construction sector has an important part to play in helping to realise these aspirations. This necessitates an increased emphasis on research in the built environment, as a key contributor to developing capacity, knowledge and technologies for the sector. The West Africa Built Environment Research (WABER) conference was initiated in 2008. The objective was to: help young built environment researchers in West Africa (WA) to develop their research work and skills through constructive face-to-face interaction with their peers and experienced international academics; supply a platform for interaction among more senior academics and an outlet for disseminating their research work; and to serve as a vehicle for developing the built environment field in Africa. Three conferences have so far been organised, 2009 - 2011, bringing together ~300 academics, researchers and practitioners from the WA region. This paper draws on content analysis of the 189 papers in the proceedings of three conferences: 2009 (25); 2010 (57) and 2011 (107). These papers provide a window into current research priorities and trends and, thus, offer an opportunity to understand the kinds of research work undertaken by built environment researchers in West Africa. The aim is to illuminate the main research themes and methods that are currently pursued and the limitations thereof. The findings lay bare some of the many challenges that are faced by academics in WA and provide suggestions for alternative directions for future research and development work with indications of a potential research agenda.
Title Built environment research in West Africa
2012
The countries in West Africa (WA) are pushing for socioeconomic development. The construction sector has an important part to play in helping to realise these aspirations. This necessitates an increased emphasis on research in the built environment, as a key contributor to developing capacity, knowledge and technologies for the sector. The West Africa Built Environment Research (WABER) conference was initiated in 2008. The objective was to: help young built environment researchers in West Africa (WA) to develop their research work and skills through constructive face-to-face interaction with their peers and experienced international academics; supply a platform for interaction among more senior academics and an outlet for disseminating their research work; and to serve as a vehicle for developing the built environment field in Africa. Three conferences have so far been organised, 2009-2011, bringing together ~300 academics, researchers and practitioners from the WA region. This paper draws on content analysis of the 189 papers in the proceedings of three conferences: 2009 (25); 2010 (57) and 2011 (107). These papers provide a window into current research priorities and trends and, thus, offer an opportunity to understand the kinds of research work undertaken by built environment researchers in West Africa. The aim is to illuminate the main research themes and methods that are currently pursued and the limitations thereof. The findings lay bare some of the many challenges that are faced by academics in WA and provide suggestions for alternative directions for future research and development work with indications of a potential research agenda.
Building cost database for South Africa – key data trends and implications
IOP conference series, 2022
The accuracy of any projections depends on the comprehensiveness of the report and the ability to gather appropriate data for the study. Inaccurate portrayals of any study will misguide the investor and result in project failure and loss of resources. Due to the current depressed state of the South African Economy, the construction industry’s value fell sharply and there was significant job loss. To help economic recovery, the South African government announced a ten-year infrastructure investment plan in housing among other sectors. The considerable deficit in infrastructure and housing in South Africa means that changes in building costs are important because of the implications of changes to affordability. This paper examines the trends in building costs in South Africa over five years and reconciles these indicators with other key socio-economic factors. The study analysed the indicators of Building Cost in the Medium-Term Forecasting Associates (MFA), Department Trade and Industry (DTi), and StatsSA database using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings suggest a positive correlation between population growth, unemployment, poverty, and the growth in building costs. While it can be inferred that inflation and corruption have a negative impact on growth in building cost. The study recommends that investors should plan ahead and make projections on population, unemployment, and poverty to avoid project failure and loss of resources due to increased building costs.
Sustainable African Built Environments
African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, 2013
Carbon emission scenarios are used as key inputs to the sustainability and built environment strategies and policies of many developed countries. Decisions and direction in these are based on carbon emission models which show the optimum mix of interventions required to achieve carbon emission reductions or stabilization. Developing countries and countries in Africa are now under increasing pressure to adopt carbon emission criteria as the key focus of their built environment policies and strategies. This paper argues against this. It suggests that focusing on carbon emissions is likely to result in limited resources and timeframes being exhausted trying to achieve reductions and valuable opportunities to build long term sustainable solutions will be lost. It also argues that increasingly scarce resources, infrastructure backlogs, the lifespan of infrastructure and buildings (50+ years) and the limited timeframes for addressing climate change mean that African countries cannot address carbon emission reductions first, and then address sustainability later; they need to address both at once. This paper also argues that while reducing carbon emissions may benefit companies involved in renewable energy and energy efficient technologies, it does not lead to sustainability. Sustainability is complex and requires the achievement of minimum quality of life standards as well as a balance between environmental and human systems. Carbon emission reduction technologies, by themselves, will not achieve this. This paper draws on a definition of sustainability developed by the World Wildlife Fund to show how a sustainable development approach can address carbon emissions while building more sustainable systems. It describes the Built Environment Sustainability Tool (BEST) developed by the author in 2011 and shows how this can be used to assess built environments and identify appropriate mixes of interventions to improve the sustainability performance of built environments. It also outlines interventions that can be used to support the development of more sustainable African built environments.
Proceedings of the WABER 2015 Conference (Volume 1)
Proceedings of the West Africa Built Environment Research (WABER) Conference 2015 Volume 1 10th - 12th August 2015 in Accra, Ghana Editors Samuel Laryea, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Roine Leiringer, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong First published in 2015 978-0-620-66247-5(print) 978-0-620-66248-2(e-book) The ISBN for this publication was provided by the National Library of South Africa. Legal deposits of the publication have been supplied to the National Library of South Africa, Library of Parliament, and other places of Legal Deposit. © Copyright. WABER Conference. 2015. The copyright for papers in this publication belongs to authors of the papers. Published by: West Africa Built Environment Research (WABER) Conference C/o Samuel Laryea School of Construction Economics and Management University of the Witwatersrand 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Johannesburg, South Africa PO Box 20, Wits 2050 Tel: +27 78 172 6106 Email: samuel.laryea@wits.ac.za Website: www.waberconf.com / www.waberconference.com Declaration All papers in this publication have been through a review process involving initial screening of abstracts, review of full papers by at least two referees, reporting of comments to authors, revision of papers by authors and re-evaluation of re-submitted papers to ensure quality of content.
Impacts of Construction Activities on the Environment: The Case of Ghana
Construction activities impact on the environment throughout the life cycle of development. These impacts occur from initial work on-site through the construction period, operational period and to the final demolition when a building comes to an end of its life. Even though the construction period is comparatively shorter in relation to the other stages of a building's life, it has diverse significant impacts on the environment. This study investigates the major impacts of construction activities on the environment in Ghana. Thirty-three possible impacts of construction activities on the environment were identified from literature. These impacts were further categorized into nine major groups and were subjected to a cross-sectional survey. Questionnaire and interview were used to elicit the views of respondents. Questionnaires were distributed to 100 randomly selected construction practitioners made up of 58 architects, 37 quantity surveyors and 5 structural engineers registered with their professional bodies. Semi-structured interview was conducted amongst purposively selected contractors and consultants. The respondents were asked to identify the most important environmental impacts. The relative importance of the impacts identified were calculated and ranked by the relative importance index. According to the results of the study, the respondents agreed that resource consumption group impacts ranked highest among the major impacts of construction activities on the environment in Ghana. The resource consumption group impacts were raw materials consumption, electricity consumption, water consumption and fuel consumption. Biodiversity impact was second followed by local issues impacts. The paper recommends that stakeholders in the construction industry should come up with special legislations, codes or standards relating to sustainable construction practices specific to Ghana's construction environment and ensure proper and effective implementation.