Newscenter Media News For some years now, Nigeria has experienced perennial cases of outbreak of cholera resulting in several million cases and hundreds of casualties. While it is often managed to prevent spreading, Cholera is one of the preventable diseases if appropriate sanitation and hygiene practices are adopted in Nigeria.
Looking into possible causes of cholera and other ingestible diseases, water seems to be a major channel of transmission. Consumption of contaminated water, food, vegetables and fruits has shown to be the most prevalent conduits for transmission and spreading of Cholera in Nigeria.
Proper Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) management ensures availability of potable water for human consumption and food processing as well as providing clean and adequate toilet facilities for human waste collection, storage, treatment or processing into other beneficial end products. This is the concept for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 6) but unfortunately, we still fall below 50 per cent compliance to the various components of SDGs 6.
So, our interest should be on ensuring that water supplied and used by homes, farms for crop production and food processing are of impeccable quality. Over 90 per Nigerians in towns and cities have their running tap water sourced solely from boreholes while rural dwellers and irrigation farmers get their water from ponds, streams and rivers. Thus, our emphasis should be on water quality.
Surface water quality
Surface water in Nigeria has been converted to waste dumps in various cities and villages. Storm water drainage lines which empty into streams and rivers transport solid and liquid effluents into water bodies, which serve as drinking water and water for crop irrigation for communities downstream. In situations of flooding, shoreline and coastal communities experience a massive mixture of their waters and sewage thus increasing the dose of contamination.
Groundwater quality
While assumptions are that groundwater is clean and potable, little is known of the possibility of contamination of groundwater. Urbanisation has massively increased the rate of groundwater contaminations by anthropogenic factors. Town planners have not designed appropriate domestic waste management systems in many towns and cities in Nigeria.
Most homes in Nigeria towns and cities collect their human waste in Septic tanks designed to allow infiltration of the liquid component into the earth. These houses also are designed to function on individual boreholes for their daily water needs.
The earth’s natural water cycle helps in replenishing groundwater from this infiltration system and also components of the soil helps in natural treatment of groundwater but under supervised conditions.
Urbanisation and wash system
Urban planners have not placed much concern on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) systems of towns and cities during planning. Integration of Hydro-geologist, Hydrologist and Environmentalist in urban planning will help in identifying possible consequences of human activities on the ecosystem thereby making provisions to avoid, reduce impact or redesign to ensure sustainable development.
Studying “Carrying capacities” of soil in terms of population density, porosity and permeability for effluent filtration and aquifer parameters for groundwater management should be prioritized in town planning and settlement design. Overdosing the earth with too much liquid waste reduces its filtration and treatment prowess thus results in groundwater contamination. This is where the expertise of the aforementioned professionals comes to play.
While the government is battling with reintroducing the long abandoned municipal pipe borne water supply system whose water quality is guaranteed to our homes, we have to take personal measures to ensure that we manage what we have and also realize that waste management indiscipline have consequences not just on the offender but to people around and beyond.
New settlement designs should consider sustainability first; ensuring that basic facilities such as water supply and waste management are designed to meet the present population as well as projected future population to avoid infrastructure overstress. Central sewage collection systems should be adopted while waste treatment and recycling should be prioritised to enhance resource management.
New settlement designs should also integrate current climate change factors as regards water resource availability and management. While much is being done on infrastructural development, resources should also be invested in advocacy and community enlightenment on appropriate usage and management of WASH facilities.
•Mekwunye K. Prince is the Managing Director of Just Fix It Synergy Nig. Ltd and Real-Time WASH Consultants
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