WATER QUALITY EVALUATION AND SANITARY SURVEYING

People use sources tainted with disease-vector pathogens or inappropriate levels of toxins and bacteria pathogens, and they lack access to drinkable water in many regions of the world (Bilal et al. 2020).

WATER QUALITY EVALUATION AND SANITARY SURVEYING IN
SOUTHWEST NIGERIA
LASISI Kamil Oluranti, PhD

Department of Urban and Regional Planning,
The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Nigeria

Email Address: kamiloluranti@gmail.com | 2348064909000

Abstract

Sanitary surveying is an inspection technique that records visible problems that enable field workers to assess the likely quality of the water. Existing literature on water was more focused on management and access. Therefore, this study examined the use of sanitary surveying technique as an index for assessing water quality in South-Western Nigeria comprising of Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo States. The rationale behind the choice of hand-dug wells is that they form the major source of water supply in South Western States as over 2/3 of the buildings in the study area use well water as their main source of water or a viable alternative to tap water. Concept of healthy city was used while mixed method design was adopted. Data for this research were obtained from both primary and secondary sources and they were both quantitative and qualitative in nature. Data from primary sources involved direct observation, questionnaire administration, in-depth interview and Focus Group Discussions (FGD). A total number of 2,500 pieces of questionnaires were administered to respondents while six sessions of FGDs were organized in the six states. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in analysing the collected data. Water quality was analyzed with the aid of UV-Vis Spectrophotometer. Near animal pens (23.8%), near laundry or washing slab (21.4%), close to private (domestic) dumping site (16.4%), near drainage (13.7%), near soak away/pit latrines (18.2%) and near large trees with extensive root systems (6.5%) were the various locations of wells in the study area. The study reveals that Escherichia coli (33.3), Staphylococcus aures (22.2%), Salmonella typhi (11.1%), Proteus vulgaris (22.2%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (5.6%) were the bacteria found in the sampled wells. The study recommends relocation of wells that are within 30m, 100m, 20m and 100m radius away from latrine, dumping site, animal pens and cemetery respectively. It is therefore assured that if contamination from hand-dug well source of water supply can be curbed, then water borne diseases resulting from water pollution must have been adequately controlled.

Keywords:

Pathology, Physico-chemical, hand-dug wells, water quality, and sanitary surveying