Evaluation of Water Quality of Domestic Water Sources in Nasarawa Town, Nasarawa Local Government Area, Nasarawa State, Nigeria

This study evaluated water quality of domestic water sources during dry seasons in Nasarawa Local Government Area, Nasarawa State, Nigeria to ascertain the safety of such sources for drinking purposes. A total of fourteen (14) water samples were collected, six (6) samples from boreholes, another six (6) from wells and two (2) samples from Kurafe and Haderi rivers. Samples were preserved by storing in ice-filled cooler boxes and transported to the laboratory. The results showed that some of the samples contain E. coli and the average concentrations of pH, EC, BOD, COD and Fe fall short of WHO standard for drinking purpose. Though on average basis other parameters are within the WHO permissible limit for drinking, parameters such as TDS, TSS, turbidity, hardness, chloride, magnesium, calcium, E.Coli and Total Coliform Count had high standard deviation which has indication of high variation in values thus, some samples fall short of WHO permissible limit for drinking in terms of these parameters. It was concluded that majority of the domestic water sources are not safe for drinking purposes. The study recommended that the quality of water sources should be monitored periodically to ascertain further degradation in the domestic water quality, public-private partnership should be encourage in order to increase access to piped borne water networks in the study area via system rehabilitation and expansion and finally awareness programs should be implemented to inform the communities of the status of the water quality and method that can be used to avoid getting ill resulting from water contamination, this method need to be developed.