WATER QUALITY APPRAISAL AND ITS EFFECT ON AQUATIC LIFE AND ECOTOURISM: A CASE STUDY OF LAKE BOSOMTWE

A study was undertaken in Lake Bosomtwe in Ghana's Ashanti Region to analyse the lake's performance in terms of temporal fluctuations of chosen biological features, physicochemical characteristics, and biological characteristic correlation analyses. From 2013 to 2015, sixty (60) water samples were taken from ten (10) selected places on the lake during the rainy and dry seasons. The average values for colour, temperature, pH, alkalinity, hardness, calcium, magnesium, chloride, phosphate, nitrate, arsenic, zinc, copper, and lead were 52.00Pt-co, 24.80oC, 7.22, 46.42, 53.50, 4.01, 8.08, 1560, 0.79, 0.11, 0.07, 0.10, 0.14, 0.04mg/l, 0.79, 0.11, 0.07, 0.10, All of the results were within the World Health Organization's (WHO) water quality criteria for aquatic life and recreation. There was also a progressive increase in biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) and chemical oxygen demand (COD), indicating that aquatic life's oxygen need was being altered, perhaps rendering the water unfit for aquatic life in the near future. Finally, BOD5 had a strong positive relationship with COD and a negative relationship with DO and pH. The deteriorating character of the lake as a result of gradually growing BOD5 and COD concentrations should be a source of concern for the lake's authorities and managers.

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