ANALYSIS OF THE FACTORS AFFECTING WATER SUPPLY AND DISTRIBUTION

ANALYSIS OF THE FACTORS AFFECTING WATER SUPPLY AND DISTRIBUTION IN OLOJE ESTATE ILORIN, KWARA STATE.

Abstract

A major challenge facing many countries of the world is how to balance the rate of demand and supply of safe water for the domestic consumption of their citizens. It has been noted that many occupants of the residential estate in Oloje have problems of water supply and distribution to their building. This research was carried out to assess the problems associated with the water supply and its distribution in Oloje Estate and recommending ways of improving the system. The methodology involve the administration of well-structured questionnaires, oral interview with KWWC officials, laboratory testing of the physiochemical qualities of water from each source and review of related literature. Results show that only about 26% of the total residents of this estate get their water supply from the Utility Board (KWWC). Consequently, most of the residents rely on alternative sources which are usually untreated. Findings also revealed that the Borehole water source is the most preferred water source to the residents of Oloje Estate with 41.75% and only 5.11% of the residents travel more than 1000m to their alternative sources of water supply. The research also shows that the level of adequacy of water supply to the Estate by the Kwara State Water Corporation is low and the major impediment to this short fall in supply is Lack of Governmental Intervention. The inadequate supply of treated water is however continuously causing problem of poor sanitation and bad health, leading to shorter life span as well as social and economic backwardness of the area.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0       INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background of the Study

The term “built environment” refers to the human made surrounding that provides the setting for human activities ranging in scale from buildings and parks or green space to neighborhood and metropolis or areas that often include their supporting infrastructure such as water supply, or energy networks.

All people have the right to have access to water supply in quantities and of good quality equal to their basic needs irrespective of their stage of development and their social and economic conditions (Mar del Plata Water Conference, 1977). Water is the most important of all public utilities. It is second to oxygen in the sustenance of human lives. Anything that disturbs the availability and supply of water therefore tends to disturb the survival of humanity. However, when it is inadequate in either quantity or quality, it can be a limiting factor in poverty alleviation and economic recovery resulting in poor health and low productivity, food insecurity and constrained economic development. Poverty in Africa has been the major factor of inadequacy in access to water and sanitation (Gbadegesin, 2007).

Water is fundamental to life and health. The significance of water to man never be over emphasized. It is the most important beneficiary factor to man’s sustenance, apart from shelter, food and clothing (Ajadi, 1996). It is the basic ingredient which life as a whole depends on. It serves as the major source of survival to plants, animal and human being, without water existence of life on earth is impossible (Asthana and Asthana, 2001). To lead a healthy life in human society, the uses of water cannot be over emphasized. It is a prerequisite to the realization of all other human rights. Water is needed to sustain life and it has always been a subject of great interest to man since it forms the basis for human survival as a function of its important usage for both domestic and industrial purposes. It is a foundation for human prosperity because adequate and high quality water supplies provide a basis for the growth and development of human, social, economic, cultural and political systems (Young, 2006). From the beginning of human civilization or even the origin of man to be precise, man is always found to settle where he has easy access to water like lakes, rivers, streams and other bodies of water. Indeed, anywhere you see man; there must be provision for water even if it is at its lowest quantity.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2004), the total domestic water demand by man for domestic activities is estimated as 250 litres per capita per day. For this reason, the possibility of life (or man’s) existing in any particular place depends on the presence or accessibility to water. It was observed by Oyebande (1977), that “the priority accorded domestic water supply by colonial administration had not been sustained by post-independence governments of the country. It was also noted that between 1946 and 1960, the average percentage of the total government expenditure on water was 11.4% whereas between 1962 and 1975, it decreased to 4.5%”. The total domestic water needs in homes with piped water and inside sanitation is at least 115 liters per head per day. The actual amount used by any individual may be greater or lesser depending on the ease and convenience of supply (Ayoade and Oyebande, 1983). Over the years, as human race grow in population the need for more building arises thereby increasing the demand for sufficient water supply and distribution within our built environment. All over the world, millions of miles of water distribution pipeline provide drinking water to individuals and industries. WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program currently estimates that 1.1 billion people (17% of the global population) lack access to water resources, where access is defined as the availability of at least 20 liters of water per person per day from an improved water source within a distance of 1 km (Bates et al., 2008). The rapidly growing world population is contributing to the deterioration of the available fresh water quality and is creating significant challenges for water managers, industries and fishes and wild life agencies.

The resulting polluted water contains protozoa, viruses, bacteria and intestinal parasites which cause water borne diseases (Thomas, 2005). The worldwide water issue made the United Nations general assembly in December 2003 to proclaim year 2005 to 2015 as the international decade for action “water for life” which was launched on the 22^nd March 2005 by the then United Nation’s Secretary General Kofi Anan (UN, 2003). This has woken the world awareness to the pressing water issue. Water distribution systems are large network of storage tanks, valves, pumps and pipes that transport finished water to consumers. Finished water here means water that has been treated and ready for delivery. Water is an important geomorphic agent playing a significant role in weathering the most important energy regulator in the heat budget of the earth (Ayoade, 1988). The value of water, therefore, is determined by two elements, supply-the cost of providing the resource in a certain quality, quantity, and location which varies in different parts of the country and demand-the utility to humans and their willingness to pay for that utility (Cech, 2005).

Although Nigeria is known to be endowed with abundant water resources, the availability of potable water is a problem in many parts of the country (Onokerhoraye, 1995). The Nigerian Government has long considered the provision of water supply services to be the domain of the Federal, State and Local Governments. However, the public sector has not been successful in meeting more than a small portion of the demand for water of residential and commercial users. Services are in critically short supply (FRN, 2000). Since 1999, a huge amount of public funds have been spent on provision and management of water. However, there is still no potable water and many lack access to adequate sanitation. Government insists it cannot handle water supply all by itself for lack of funds, and have ceded its statutory role to shylock water producers, who do not know or care about safe water standards (Oghifo, 2008). Many households, often the poorest, end up purchasing water from private vendors much more expensively than from the public supply. Water supply services, where they exist, are unreliable and of low quality and are not sustainable because of difficulties in management, operation and pricing, and failure to recover costs. Many water supply systems show extensive deterioration and poor utilization of existing capacities, due to under-maintenance and lack of funds for operation (FRN, 2000).

1.2       Need for the Study

In Nigeria today, even though it is blessed with abundant water resource estimated as 22.6 million m³ surface water and, about 40 million m³ underground water, it is still faced with the problem of acute shortage of water supply (FMWR, 2006). A major challenge facing many developing countries is how to supply safe domestic water to their citizens. The demand for water is rising at an exponential rate due to increasing population. Water demand has already exceeded supply in many countries of the world, and as the human population continues to increase geometrically, many more areas are expected to experience this imbalance in the near future (Wikipedia, 2013). The number of people who rely on the earth’s limited freshwater reserves is increasing every day. In fact, a scarcity of clean, fresh water is one of the world’s most pressing environmental problems (Arms, 2008). The water supply problem is one of balancing supply and demand, availability of water resource, geographically and temporally, its quality, rates of replenishment or depletion as well as demands from end users is major determining factors in any water management strategy.

At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, great concern was expressed about the 1.1 billion people in the world who do not have access to safe drinking water and the 2.4 billion who live without proper sanitation (Cech, 2005). The resulting human toll is roughly 3.3 billion cases of illness and 2 million deaths per year. Moreover, even as the world’s population grows, the limited easily accessible freshwater resources in rivers, lakes and shallow groundwater aquifers are dwindling as a result of over-exploitation and water quality degradation (IAEA, 2004).

Many factors are perceived to be responsible for the inadequate and inequitable water distribution of improved water supply in Nigeria. Some of the factors include lack of basic planning data, flood and erosion, manpower shortage and corruption. Human welfare and economic development generally depend on the use of water. Water as a very vital resource is not in short in Nigeria and Ilorin in particular, but regulating its availability and ensuring even distributions is in fact a serious problem. (Sule, 2000).

However, the quantity of portable water available to the inhabitants has received cries of inadequacies. Two extreme views have been often expressed regarding availability of water to man. Some believe that man is in his critical period in water consumption, and that demand is already overtaking supply. The other view is that water is sufficiently available for all the time everywhere worldwide. Both views may be acceptable in terms of water resources availability across the geographical space (Ajadi, 2010). In Nigeria, water resources management and utilization is crucial to the country’s efforts to reduce poverty, grow the economy, ensure food security and maintain the ecological systems. Nevertheless, the issue of water resources management in the country focuses mainly on water supply and it receives only minimal attention by government. Water is the most basic resource that forms the largest part of essentially all living organism. It is more feasible to sustain human lives longer without food than without water (Ayoade, 1975, 1988; NEST, 1991).

The UN predicts that by 2025, two-thirds of the world population will experience water scarcities, with severe lack of water blighting the lives and livelihoods of 1.8 billion. According to the UN World Water Assessment Program, by 2050, 7 billion people in 60 countries may have to cope with water scarcity (Chenoweth, 2008). According to NPC (1994), it was noted that between 1992 and 1996, the total water supply for industrial, agricultural and domestic used increased at a rate of about 1.0% whereas population growth rate was at 2.81%. An essential part of all water supply system is the distribution system. The water has to get to the consumer through the network of pipelines with a minimum specified residual pressure at sufficient quantity without degrading its quality from the sources or purification plants. Among other components, this supply system also includes hydraulic elements such as pumping stations and storage reservoirs. An individual distribution pipe network can have many solutions for a predetermined set of consumptions and pressure head valves, depending on pumping station, location of elevated storage reservoirs and even the topography of the area under consideration.

When human do not have access to portable water, they do not only suffer physically and emotionally but also socio-economically. This can be the cause of environmental degradation (UNDP, 2006). As the human population increases geometrically, the means of achieving water supply and distribution to the populace only increases arithmetically which is a shortfall in supply as the demand for this amenity has implied.

It has been noted that many occupants of some residential estates in Oloje, have problems of water distribution in their buildings. The only reliable source of portable water supply to this neighborhood is the mechanical bore-holes (hand pump) that are located at some strategic positions within the estate. Other sources of portable water supply for domestic use in this estate is the well and water collected from the rain. Another water source here is water pumped into over-head reservoir by electrical pumps in some houses with supply pipes outsides the fences. The problem here is to find out what factors are responsible for the poor performance of water supply. A close observation of this estate has shown that many houses here have no running water in their homes. The inability to obtain adequate water and water facilities to match the growing population in Ilorin has resulted into a social and economic problem in the area. Water is the key to developmental process of any nation, as a lack of steady water supply hinders to some extend the influx of entrepreneurs in establishing activities especially those that are water dependent (Yusuf et al, 2009).

Kwara State Water Corporation (KWWC), Ilorin, whose responsibility is to pump and distribute sufficient clean water to the residents in the study area, is seriously constrained due to its inability to meet the rising demand of domestic potable water. Water consumption and use has however been greatly hampered by the increasing population brought about by the influx of people into the study area (Abaje, et al., 2009).

1.3 Aim and Objectives

The aim of this research is to assess the problems associated with the water supply and its distribution in Oloje estate and recommending ways of improving the system.In particular, the study has the following specifics objectives:

1. To identify the sources of water supply,
2. To establish how the water from Utility Board is distributed,
3. To examine the adequacy of water from these sources,
4. To examine the impediments to the water supply and distribution in the estate,
5. Suggest ways by which water supply and distribution can be improved.

1.4 Scope of the Study

This project shall focus on the problems associated with the distribution system of water in Oloje estate of Ilorin, Kwara State. The study will focus on the existing water distribution systems.

1.5       Research Methodology

1. Review of related Literature (Journals, Books and Articles)
2. Interviews with principal officers of Kwara State Water Corporation and other water experts around the state.
3. Questionnaires to be administered by occupants of Oloje housing Estate
4. Water supply and distribution pattern data collected from Kwara State Water Corporation.
5. Personal observation within the estate.

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