Impact of Pit Latrines on Groundwater Quality of Fokoslum, Ibadan, Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

____________________________________________________________________________________________*Corresponding author: E-mail:pheterhardey@yahoo.com;British Journal of Applied Science & Technology4(3):440-449, 2014SCIENCEDOMAINinternationalwww.sciencedomain.orgImpact of Pit Latrines on Groundwater Qualityof Fokoslum, Ibadan, Southwestern NigeriaI. E.Ahaneku1and P.A. Adeoye1,2*1Department of Agricultural and Bioresources Engineering,Federal University ofTechnology, P.M.B. 65 Minna, Nigeria.2Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, University Putra, DarulEhsan,Selangor, Malaysia.Authors’ contributionsThis work was carried out in collaboration between all authors.Author IEA, designed andsupervised the execution of the project and handled the statistical analysis aspect of theresearch. He also supervised the writing of the manuscript andedited the final copy before itwas sent out for consideration forpublication.Author PAAjoined the local residents inFokoto collect the water samples and was in the laboratory for the water analysis. He wrotethe laboratory reports and prepared the first draft of the manuscript which was edited byauthor IEA.All authors read and approved thefinal manuscript.Received31stMay2013Accepted28thSeptember2013Published26thOctober2013ABSTRACTInsufficient supply of treated water in most of the rural and peri-urban areas of Nigeriahas made groundwater a major source of water supply for domestic and other purposes.In theseareas,water demand is fulfilled from shallow wells. The shallow wells arecommonly constructed close to pit latrines.A study was therefore conducted to determinethe impact of pit latrines on groundwater quality in Foko slum, Southwestern Nigeria.Water quality of shallow wells was assessed within the slum with respect to their distancefrom fivepit latrines. Water samples were collected from the shallow wells and analyzedfor determination of total and faecal coliforms (FC), alkalinity, total dissolved solids (TDS),total suspended solids (TSS), nitrates, electrical conductivity, turbidity and pH.The faecalcoliform values were regressed with distance between the pit latrines and the wells. Theresulting equation was evaluated to obtain a minimum lateral distance between a pitlatrine and shallow well for zero value of microbiological parameters in the wells.Results showed that the physico-chemical parameters of the water samples were withinthe World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for drinking water quality. Nevertheless,OriginalResearch Article British Journal of Applied Science & Technology,4(3):440-449,2014441biological contaminants exceeded the recommendation of WHO drinking water qualityguidelines. Maximum coliform counts enumerated were9300cfu/100ml of water. Thisstudy shows that there is an indicator gradient in faecal bacteria with distance from pitlatrines, and that pit latrineswhichimpact on shallow well water at lateral distances of19.75m.