Practising the past in the present: using Ghanaian indigenous methods for water quality determination in the contemporary era

Abstract

Surface water sources remain the dominant sources of water supply for a significant proportion of poor communities. These water supply sources tend to have low water quality levels. Application of water quality determination and purification measures could minimize water-related diseases associated with direct consumption of water with poor quality levels. A number of simple measures have been devised and utilized by indigenous communities based on their resource conservation knowledge to improve water quality levels. However, scientific approaches that are more in tune with modern demands for reliability and exactness are the preferred, mainstream approaches for determining water quality. Growing recognition of the relevance of indigenous knowledge has led to renewed interest in the possibility of utilizing it for such tasks. Research conducted in 2007 and 2008 in two indigenous communities in Ghana revealed a diversity of indigenous methods for water quality determination and purification including straining, settling and use of special seeds which could still be useful in this contemporary era. This paper recommends that knowledge co-production and transdisciplinary approaches be employed to enable indigenous communities and experts to collaborate and develop measures that tap both knowledge systems for improving water quality levels for human use.