Perception of Sources, Accessibility and Consequences of Domestic Water Supply in Mbaitoli Local Government Area of Imo State, Nigeria.

Abstract

The study focused on the accessibility  and consequences of domestic water supply(DWS) in Mbaitoli L. G.A. Structured questionnaire was administered  on 10 autonomous communities that were randomly selected.   Sources of  DWS  evaluated includes : bore hole, stream, pond, rainwater, underground water, water vendor and pipe borne water. The results revealed that rainwater consumption has the highest percentage of 24% with pipe borne water having the lowest percentage of 1%. Accessibility study revealed that 26% travelled between 1-2km, 51% between 3-4km and 23% revealed above >4 km in search of water. The result hygienic condition shown that  69% affirmed the poor hygienic  conditions of sources of DWS, while 48% do not treat water meant for drinking and provision of potable water is on self-help basis constituting 76%,  with Government having 16%, and  Non-governmental Organizations(NGOs) constituting 8%. Based on the results, Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) should be practiced to include Government and NGOs  involvement in water supply, operation and  maintenance  (O&M) of rainwater harvesting (RWH) to: improves water availability, its proximity, its quantity and its quality in order to eradicate women's and girl’s children burden of collecting water for domestic use  and reduce the  amount of rainwater that goes to the drainage  in order to  avoid the floods phenomena.

Keywords: Sources, Consequences,  Accessibility ,  Domestic, Water.