The Quality of Drinking Well Waters in Jos Metropolis, North Central Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Water quality is a term used to describe the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of water, usually in respect to its suitability for a particular purpose. Water is said to be polluted if there is an excess, whatsoever, in the values (concentration levels) of the physical, chemical, biological or radioactive properties that have a negative effect on human health.
Methodology: Twenty different Areas within Jos Metropolis were selected by simple random sampling for the research, Samples of water were drawn from wells in these areas in duplicate through simple random sampling selection of the wells giving a total of forty different sampled waters and the physical, chemical and biological analysis of the water was done using standard methods.
Result: All the wells had turbidity greater than the acceptable value of not more than 5.0 NTU with 19(47.5%) wells having values as high as 20-29 NTU and 2(5%) wells with values of 40-49 NTU. The PH level for all the wells were within the normal range but the nitrite above the normal range in most (82.5%) of the wells except in 7(17.5%) wells that had values between 0.01-0.02mg/L. The coliform count was found to be high in all the sampled water with 33(82.5%) wells having values as high as 5-9 coliform count per 100mls of water.
Conclusion: Water-related diseases continue to be one of the major health problems globally. Drinking water quality must be within tolerable use-limits for human consumption. In the study conducted, it was obvious that all the wells did not meet the standard requirement for quality drinking water since all the wells had coliform count above the recommended value for Standard Organization of Nigeria(SON), National agency for food drug administration and control(NAFDAC) and World Health Organization(WHO).