Patrick Odhiambo Hayombe

Assessing Water- Based Recreational Activities to Project Beach Ecotourism Potentials in Kisumu County

This paper presents discussions on observed scenarios that characterize water-based recreational activities with an aim of laying grounds for appreciating relationships that enhance or hamper ecotourism development in Lake Victoria, Kisumu County. The study was premised from an argument that lake water resources demonstrate prospects for activities like swimming, boating, sunbathing, skiing, recreational fishing and visual amenities among others. The study was conducted through observations and confirmatory follow up queries from relevant stakeholders along Lake Victoria from Asat, Ogal, Usoma and Lwangni beaches of Lake Victoria. The main objective was to examine existing trends of water-based activities in relation to ecotourism and envisage potentials of each beach water front for recreation in Kisumu County. Thus, this paper presents results of a systematic synthesis of interactions between lake (surface) water and outdoor recreation, a significant socioeconomic subsystem. The study maps out characteristics of accessible water front areas, popularly known as beaches, for their ecological sensitivity and ascertains the possibility of the sites to be planned or augmented to facilitate ecotourism development. Findings reveal the spatial potential of the sites but with gaps that intimidate possible popularity of ecotourism industry due to intentional human activities, negligence and perceptions. The existing technical and scientific knowledge on Lake Victoria Basin has been boosted by this study; hence, results and recommendations potentially enable academic institutions, development agencies and Kisumu County Government to seriously begin ecotourism development, which has

Positioning ecotourism destinations in Kisumu County: Cultural Diversity Perspective

Positioning of ecotourism destination is crucial to survival and success of business value chain of the cultural sites as alternative source of livelihood of the local communities in Kisumu County. This paper sought to establish significant factors to consider in branding cultural sites as ecotourism destinations for sustainable livelihood in Kisumu County and its environs. This study was anchored on Place Branding Theory and Social Exchange Theory. The study adopted descriptive embedded case design and cross-sectional survey in the three selected units of analysis methodology with both quantitative and qualitative approaches to source and analyze data. The finding established that positioning of ecotourism destinations will increase visitations in Kisumu County and create business value chain opportunities for sustainable source of livelihood.

Spatial Equity in Devolved Healthcare: Geospatially Exploring Local Disparities in Maternal Healthcare Uptake After Devolution in Kenya

Agriculture and livestock are the main socio-economic activities of the population of the Zinder region (Niger). However, these activities have negative impacts on groundwater quality, which is the main source of water supply for this population. In this work, the physicochemical quality of the waters of the Socle of the Zinder region was studied during the rainy and dry seasons. Twenty-four samples were the subject of a physico-chemical analysis. The data obtained were processed by the hydrochemical method by the Diagram software and the principal component analysis by the XLSTAT software. Of the waters analyzed, 83% have normal pH values (6.5 - 8.5) and 17% acid pH <6.5 during both seasons. The nitrate levels of Yekoua (62.04 and 63.36 mg.L-1), Dan Ladi (123.64 and 146.96 mg.L-1), Bourbourwa (64.65 and 80.08 mg.L -1) and Kazoe (130.68 and 124.52 mg.L-1) and fluoride of Kazoe (1.5 mg.L-1), Midik (1.6 mg.L-1) and Bourbourwa (2.98 mg.L-1) during both seasons are abnormal. Four facies characterize the analyzed waters, with a predominance of bicarbonated calci-magnesian(42%) during the rainy season, calci-magnesian bicarbonate (41.7%) and calci-magnesium chloride (41.7%) during the dry season. The residence time by hydrolysis and alteration of silicate rocks and the pluviolessivage of soils are the main mechanisms that govern the mineralization of these waters. These grades, call for remediation treatments. Clays could be promoters for this treatment because they are very available and less expensive.The choice of modification technique for a communications system depends to a large extent on the nature and characteristics of the medium in which it must operate (Hrasnica et al., 2005). In a PLC (Power Line Communications) system, the first applications in the LDR band (oriented to the control of devices) operated with monocarrier modulations, such as ASK, BPSK, and FSK. This allows for low implementation costs, provided that it operates at low data rates and with an error correction system. It is clear that applications require a higher data rate. The modulation technique must overcome challenges such as the necessary equalization for the cause of the non-linearity of the channel, or avoid the propagation delays and the multipath caused by the impedance differences in the branches. Likewise, it must offer flexibility and avoid the use of certain frequencies if they are altered or assigned to another service and, therefore, cannot be used in PLC. In this scenario, one of the techniques that have been imposed in the most used developments in NB-PLC as in BB-PLC has been Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). One of its most attractive aspects from the point of view of its complexity is the possibility of implementing the structure of its multifrequency modulation and demodulation scheme through a simple Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (IDFT) and its corresponding direct transform, Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Based on this technique, an appropriate transceiver scheme for operating on a PLC channel model was presented. This development implements the error correction technique proposed for NB-PLC.