LOCATION AND SIZE

Assin South District Assembly was carved out of the former Assin District Assembly; it was established by Legislative Instrument, LI 1760 of 2004; as one of the 22 administrative Districts in the Central Region.  It lies within longitudes 1.05’’ West and 1.25’’ West and latitudes 6.05’’ North and 6.40’’ North. It is situated within the middle portion of the Central Region.

It shares political and administrative boundaries with Assin North Municipality in the North, Abura,Aseibu Kwamankese District and Mfantseman Municipality in the South, Asikuma Odoben– Brakwa District and Ajumako– Enyan – Essiam District in the East, Twifo Atimokwa and Heman – Lower Denkyira Districts in the West.

The District covers a total land area of 1,187 square kilometres, which is 12% total land area of the Central Region (9,826sqkm). This is the largest District in the region.

CLIMATE

Assin South District falls within the evergreen and semi-deciduous forest zones. The annual temperatures are high and ranges between 30ºC from March - April and about 20 ºC in August. Annual rainfall is between 1,500 - 2,000mm. Average relative humidity is high ranging from 60% to 70%. The ecological balance allows for a variety of food, cash and non – traditional export crops to be grown. The District experiences relative cool and moist south west monsoon winds that blow from the Atlantic for most part of the year – between December and February. However, the District also experience dry Harmatan or North – East Trade winds which blow from the Sahara Region.

Its dissipating effect however is greatly reduced by long passage over the forest zone. Rainfall pattern is bimodal with the major raining season starting from April – July corresponding with the major farming season. However, this may be preceded by intermittent rain falls in February - March. The minor raining season starts from September – November.

VEGETATION

The vegetation cover is generally evergreen, made up of thick virgin forest in the forest reserves, interspersed with receding rainforest and swampy vegetation predominated by raffia, palm and bamboo groves. The forest has the following tree species odum, mahogany and wawa.

SOIL AND MINERAL

The major soil types are silt from alluvial erosion activities, clayey and loamy soils. The District is endowed with a number of mineral resources which have potential for development. Some of these potential resources are tapped whilst others are untapped. These include gold deposits, rocks and stone deposits, clay and other deposits. Gold deposits are located at Assin Manso and others rocks and quarry deposits are also located at Ongwa, Adiembra, Bosomadwe, Aworo Camp and other places.

RELIEF AND DRAINAGE

The District is characterized by undulating topography and has an average height of 200m above sea level. The highest peak of 6mm is located around Bosomadwe. The District is drained by numerous small rivers and streams. Consequently, there are many flood–prone plains. The main rivers include the Kakum, Ochi, Kyina and Wanko. Swamps also abound in the District which serves as potentials for fish farming and dry season vegetable farming.

GEOLOGY

The land area is underlain by geological strata of Cape Coast avanite complex belonging to the pre-cambrian platform. It comprises basically of granite, gramachosites and admelites. It is chistone in some communities and very massive in others. It also includes several components ranging in composition from grandioristers to granites and other magnetic varieties. The predominant mica minerals are mascorite, however, are underlie by the lower Birimian Phyllites, which are often associated with extensive decomposition basins and thick weathering mantles.

The vegetation cover is generally evergreen, made up of thick virgin forest in the forest reserves, interspersed with receding rainforest and swampy vegetation predominated by raffia, palm and bamboo groves. The forest has the following tree species odum, mahogany and wawa.

HUMAN INTERACTIONS WITH NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

The condition of the District Natural Environment is not so bad as compared to other parts of the region where deforestation and surface mining serves as a bane on the face of the land.. However, certain human activities such as bad farming practices, illegal logging and poor housing construction practices, put the natural environment at great risk of destruction. Some industrial activities also include quarrying and over exploitation of natural water resources. According to 2010 PHC, over 77.1% households in the District use fuel wood, this represents a reduction in the 2000 PHC figure of 84.5%, whereas 12.9% use charcoal as their main sources of energy for cooking which are exploited from the forest.

Again the commonest farming practice in the District is the slash and burn method of clearing the land. This practice has left farming land bare and exposed them to erosion, thereby rapidly destroying, the natural vegetation of the District. Though not alarming, there are incidence of bush fires in the District, especially during the dry season when farmers start preparing new farmlands. According to the National Fire Service in Assin Fosu, the main course of the bush fires in the District are groups hunting, indiscriminate burning of farm land without creating fire belts by farmers, failure to seek fire volunteers’ assistance during burning land for palm wine tapping

Added to the above is indiscriminate felling of trees by chain saw operators for timber firewood and burning of charcoal. As a result of these afore-mentioned activities the natural environment stands a high risk of destruction.

BIODIVERSITY/ NATURAL CAPITAL

Biodiversity refers to the collection of all living forms on earth be it plant, animal or even microbes. Biodiversity is the foundation of ecosystem services to which human wellbeing is intimately linked. No feature of Earth is more complex, dynamic, and varied than the layer of living organisms that occupy its surfaces and its water bodies, and no feature is experiencing more dramatic change at the hands of humans than this extraordinary, singularly unique feature.

This layer of living organisms on the District land and water bodies, which basically are the plants, animals, and microbes physically and chemically unites the atmosphere, geosphere, and hydrosphere into one environmental system within which hundreds of species, including humans, have thrived. Breathable air, potable water, fertile soils, productive lands, bountiful water bodies, and other ecosystem are manifestations of the workings of life. It follows that large-scale human influences over this biota have tremendous impacts on human well-being. It also follows that the nature of these impacts, good or bad, is within the power of humans to influence.

In the Assin South District biota contains a multitude of plant and animal species, though cannot be exactly stated, it is estimated to contain more than a thousand plant and animal species on its lands and water bodies. The high biodiversity levels in the District make it advantageous to farmers and fishermen in the communities, soils are fertile and water bodies are bountiful with high yields.

Forest Reserves

The District has 5 forest reserves, which include the Ayensua, Krotoa, Assin Attandansu, Assin Apimanim and Kakum

Table 4: LIST OF FOREST RESERVES

Source (Forestry Department 2016, Assin Fosu)

These reserves serve as protective cover to some of the major rivers that drain the District. Kakum Forest Reserve has been developed into a tourist site that generates foreign exchange and income for the local economy and the nation as a whole. The reserve and vegetation are indicative that the District is endowed with potential rich forest resource especially with timber firms with concessions in the District.

However, in recent times, some human activities have greatly impacted negatively on the biodiversity levels in the District, activities such as physical infrastructure constructions, bush burning, communal hunting, logging and the use of chemicals for fishing is greatly reducing the biodiversity levels in the District, also there are challenges in utilization of forest resources notably:

· They are large and inaccessible forests.
· Many of these are unoccupied.

Thankfully, there are no major activities in the District which are deemed harzardous enough to alter the climate. Nevertheless, there are several human practices such as bush burning, timber logging and sand winning which have tendencies to collectively affect the climate.

CONDITIONS OF THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

The natural environment of the Assin South District is fairly serene with less than half of the total land area being the built up environment with various houses and other structure forming the land scape of the District.

The environment is largely made of natural plants of all sorts. Some of these plants are of intrinsic value or have commercial purposes such as cocoa and oil. The other aspect of the natural plants in the environment consists of species of wild nature and don’t really serve for any commercial value but none the less add up to making the sustenance of other ecological beings.

The District’s environment is also endowed with a lot of water bodies such as streams, rivers and man-made dug outs. There are also mangroves and thick forest reserves. The man made aspect of the environment consists of the built up natures of the environment which has a number of houses of various shapes and sizes all over the District.

Live creatures such as birds and animals of various species are not uncommon in the District.

CONDITIONS OF THE BUILT UP ENVIRONMENT

According to the 2010 PHC, in the Assin South District, 43.2% are compound houses, 42.3% are separate houses, 6.1% are semi–detached houses and 1.8% are flats or apartments. The main materials used for construction are Mud-brick /Earth (70.4%) concrete materials (25.1%) and concrete (16.4%).

The most commonly used roofing materials in the Districts indicated by the 2010 PHC is corrugated aluminium roofing sheets (80.0%) followed by thatch roofing (10.1) bamboo (4.7%), Slate (3.0%), concrete (0.4%) and others (0.5%), thatch roofing, is however very common in most of the rural settlements such as Krokoso and Yaa-Boahemaa. The housing environment in the District especially in the townships is characterized by poor drains, heap of solid waste or refuse dumps, surroundings, pronounced erosion and cracked walls especially in the villages. The problem of erosion is very pronounced in the District. This has caused the foundation of most of the houses in these, areas to be exposed and thus becoming a threat to human life.

Available statistics shows that 1.6% of households use Water Closets, 26% use Pit latrines, 9.9% use KVIP and 15.7% of the houses in the District use public toilets, which are well maintained and managed.

The only method of refuse disposal is land dumping. Under this system there is no proper maintenance of the dump sites specially no site has been allocated to any particular sanitary labourers to manage. This is done periodically and unprofessionally by the communities themselves. As a result most refuse disposal sites especially at Nyankomase-Ahenkro and Andoe are not properly managed. However, the District Assembly has initiated programmes to address these problems by procurement of trailers.

It is also executing the waste management programmes in collaboration with ZoomLion Company Ltd.

Another characteristic of the built-up environment is poor road network system. This hinders the smooth movement of vehicles and people in the District. The problem has to do with inadequate internal road network, poor nature of the existing roads, especially during the rainy seasons. This has resulted in expensive haulage of people and goods especially food items to and from market centres. As result, there is high incidence of post-harvest losses with its attendant loss of income to farmers and traders. An analysis of the number of houses, population, and the household size of 4:9 demonstrates that the housing problem in the District is more of qualitative rather than quantitative. The household per house ratio, of the District, is 1:2. This is lower than the region’s ratio of 1:6 and Cape Coast’s figure of 2:2. Indeed this is about the lowest in the region. There is therefore the need to improve the quality of housing in the District.

Another important facility, which has not been provided during the physical development of the towns, is water hydrants for fire prevention in the environment. The major reasons are the non – existence of pipe – borne water or mechanized water system. Fire service officials depend solely on streams and rivers for water to carry out their fire control activities, which very often is ineffective and inefficient.

There is an urgent need for water hydrants at vantage points especially in and around the Assin Manso, Darmang, Nyankomase – Ahenkro and the other big Towns in the District.. In view of the above, there is the need for the Assembly to incorporate the provision of water hydrants into its water supply projects. Private housing developers should also be educated to provide some of these fire preventive equipment in their houses.

Furthermore, most houses are built without due regards to building regulations. It is therefore very important for the Assembly to have layouts for most of the rapidly expanding towns and also intensify its education on building regulations.

WATER SECURITY

Water security has been defined as "the reliable availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods and production, coupled with an acceptable level of water-related risks. The water security situation in the District is not so bad in terms of availability, however, the extraction and processing of the available water for consumption and other productive activities is a challenge.

The various sources of water for consumption and commercial activities in the District are, rain water, streams, rivers, dams, wells, boreholes and mechanised water systems. Hydrological studies suggest the District is abound with ground water hence the presence of a lot of bore holes in the communities in the District, bi-annual rain fall around this part of the country also makes it easier to have access to rain water for almost threequarters of the year round. There are no activities of illegal mining or even legal mining around any of the water bodies in the District hence no threat of water contamination from such activities.

The challenges in securing water however has been the extraction processes involved in some of the water dispensing methods. Boreholes are expensive to drill and mechanised water systems are even more expensive and hence communities can hardly afford to put such measures in place and always relies on the District Assembly and other donor organisations and philanthropist. The storage facilities used to collect rain water need to be improved. For agricultural and industrial activities, there available water sources all year around however due to the high cost in setting up irrigations equipment, it is underutilised.

NATURAL AND MAN-MADE DISASTERS The District is fortunate enough to be located on a low lying area and therefore not predisposed to certain natural disasters such as earthquakes or tremors. However, there are many portions of the district which occasionally flood during certain times of the year in the raining season.

Communities including, Assin Besease, Assin Ngresi, Assin Atobiase and Assin Domeabra have experienced flooding from time to time. It is instructive to note that the flooding that occasional occure in the District does not mostly repeat in the same location. What this means is that measures are always put in place to prevent a reoccurrence. When these flooding occurs, it usually washes away the top soils and damages the crops in their wake.

Bush fires are not very predominant in the District but there are occasional isolated incidences when farmers in their bits to clear their lands for farming, set fires to the lands. There are lots of talks to farmers and communities on the importance of controlled burning they are therefore always encouraged to form fire belts around their farms when burning

Droughts have not occurred in the District in recent history, although some delays in rainfalls and the erratic nature of the rains have sometimes affected the yields from the farmers, nevertheless, it can be said to be a draught free district and it is not envisaged in the near future. Efforts must however be put in place to reduce the reliance on rain fed agriculture so as to forestall any eventuality.

Due to the nature of the buildings that are constructed in the rural communities, they are usually vulnerable to heavy rain storms and hard winds. There are occasional incidences of buildings been ripped off their rooms and sometimes collapse structures, this situation is one of the disasters that affect the District.

NATURAL RESOURCE UTILISATION

The District is blessed with natural resources in forests, water resources and quarries. The soils also make it productive for cash crop farming in cocoa and also commercial farming of various food crops such as plantain, cassava and vegetables.

The table below gives a summary of natural resources, their extraction, their utilisation and their protection.

Table 5: Natural resource utilization