Assessment of Groundwater Quality in Asarama, Andoni Local Government Area, Rivers State

Abstract

The assessment of ground water quality from selected well water samples in Asarama, Andoni LGA, Rivers State, Nigeria, was evaluated. The result of the physicochemical parameters revealed that pH ranged from 6.1 - 6.94, total suspended solid: 0 - 20mg/l, total dissolved solid: 26 - 259mg/l, total hardness: 240 - 600mg/l, conductivity: 52 - 515mg/l, Iron: 0 - (-0.165)mg/l, Lead: 0mg/l, Cadmium: 0.078 - 0.24mg/l, Chloride: 15.75 - 156.96mg/l, Alkalinity: 0.03- 0.05mg/l. microbiological analysis of well water samples revealed that the total heterotropic bacteria count ranged from: 1.2x10³ - 1.7x10³cfu/100ml, total coliform bacteria: 1.0x10² - 1.1x10²cfu/100ml, feacal coliform bacteria: 0 - 1.2x10¹cfu/100ml. The investigation of this study attest that some of the physicochemical parameters were below the World Health Organization (WHO) permissible limit while some were above the WHO permissible limit with the exception of Lead, which was found to be nil in the three well water samples. Also, the result of the microbiological analysis obtained from the well water samples showed that the THB is above the WHO standard for the three well samples, TCB is above the WHO standard for the three well samples and FCB is also above the WHO standard for the well samples except for well 2 which has a nil value. The Canadian water quality index was used to estimate the overall quality of the three well water samples which showed that; W1: 35.85% (poor), W2: 36.32% (poor) and W3: 37.42 %( poor). The water was considered poor mainly due to increased chemical and bacteriological parameter values contributing to increase composition effect on drinking water quality. However, the water sourced from the selected well water in Asarama rated a poor quality comparing to the WHO standard. This study suggests that groundwater quality ought to be surveyed preceding utilization to learn drinking water security.