A case study on the status of water supply for domestic purposes in akure, ondo state, Nigeria

Abstract

Domestic water supply is a daily necessity and key factor in human health and well being. Without water, life cannot be sustained and lack of access to adequate water supplies leads to wide spread of diseases with children bearing the greatest health burden associated with poor water quality and sanitation. The WHO estimated in 2004 that every eight seconds, a child died from water – related diseases and that each year more than five million people died from illness linked to unsafe drinking water or inadequate sanitation. This brief study attempts to assess various sources of water supply for domestic usage in Akure, the Ondo State capital to establish their level of adequacy in quantity and quality. For data collection, the town was divided into seven zones based on urbanization and population distribution. Using simple proportion analysis, the result shows that 51% of the population relied on well water for their domestic use while 28.35% combine tap water with well water and 12.37% depends on borehole. 5.6% also relied on combine tap water and boreholes. The remaining 2.57% uses tap water and spring. Government-supplied tap water is grossly inadequate to meet the domestic water demand of the community and individual households are making concerted efforts to meet their water needs through the use of hand dug wells with poor hygiene practice. Results of physiochemical test carried out on some randomly selected well water samples show that most of the tested physical and chemical parameters fall within Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) permissible limits. However, biological test carried out using number of colonies count per 100 ml revealed that all the sampled wells are not fit for drinking. Strategies to enhance optimum utilization of groundwater within Akure metropolis were proposed with sustainable management system. The result of this research work will be useful in the planning of urban water scheme to alleviate people sufferings and help water planners in meeting their social responsibility.

Keywords: Water supply, water use, ground water quality, developing countries