ABSTRACT

The groundwater qualities of some settlements in four local government areas (Fagge, Dala, Ungogo and Gwale) in Kano State, Nigeria were determined. The study was based on the assessment of physicochemical parameters of groundwater (wells and boreholes) samples. Fourty groundwater samples, ten from each local government area were collected and analyzed for the following parameters: pH, electrical conductivity (EC), temperature, total solids (TS), total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended solids (TSS), salinity, chloride, turbidity, total hardness (T.H), alkalinity, phosphate (PO4), nitrate (NO3), sulphate (SO4), sodium (Na), magnesium (Mg), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr) and lead (Pb). Standard laboratory analysis were carried out to determine the concentration of these parameters and major comparisons were equally made with World Health Organization (WHO), Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) and Water Quality Index (WQI) standard ratings. The data showed variation of the investigated parameters as follows: pH (5.11 – 7.40), temperature (27.10 – 31.83) ºC, EC (419 – 4870) µS/cm, TS (268.10 – 2776.10) mg/l, TDS (226.33 – 2743) mg/l, TSS (23.07 – 61.24) mg/l, salinity (0.15 – 2.33) ppt, chloride (65.08 – 970.33) mg/l, turbidity (0.37 – 23.9) NTU, T.H (16 – 134.26) mg/l, alkalinity (16.27 – 89.50) mg/l, PO4 (3.65 – 55.59) mg/l, NO3 (5.25 – 33.27) mg/l, SO4 (25.06 – 446) mg/l, Na (0.006 – 0.070) mg/l, Mg (0.004 – 0.889) mg/l, Cd (0.004 – 0.055) mg/l, Cr (0.038 – 0.096) mg/l and Pb (0.022 – 0.14) mg/l. The concentration of some of the investigated parameters were above the standard quality for drinking water. Lead, cadmium and chromium for instance, were found to exceed 0.01mg/l, 0.003mg/l and 0.005mg/l respectively which is the WHO maximum permissible limits. This is as a result of improper discharge of untreated effluents in the environment which led to the contamination of groundwater sources. It is therefore recommended that proper and constant monitoring of disposal processes for industrial as well as domestic effluents in the study area is employed to guarantee safe water for drinking and domestic purposes.