CHAPTER ONE

1.0     INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Water quality refers to the chemical, physical and biological characteristics of water. It is a measure of the condition of water relative to the requirements of one or more biotic species and or to any human need or purpose.

Water is essential to maintain and sustain human life, animal and plant (Patil and Patil, 2010). The availability of good quality water is an indispensable feature for preventing disease and improving quality of life ( Oluduro and Aderiye, 2007).  Safe drinking water is a human birthright as much as clean air, however much of the world’s population does not have access to safe drinking water. Of the 6 billion people on earth, more than one billion lack access to safe drinking water (Amoo and Akinbode, 2007). Groundwater constitutes an important source of water supply for domestic and agriculture purposes in Nigeria.

Groundwater is believed to be comparatively much cleaner and free from pollution than surface water. Water pollution is a state of deviation from pure condition, whereby its normal function and properties are affected. However, prolong discharge of industrial effluents, domestic sewage and solid waste dump causes the ground water to be polluted thereby creating health problems (Raja et al, 2002). These problems are much more acute in areas which are densely populated, thickly industrialized and have shallow groundwater table. Groundwater is naturally replenished by surface water from precipitation, streams and rivers when this recharge reaches the water table and naturally lost through discharge to the oceans, evaporation, and evapotranspiration. Rain water dissolves soluble salts from vegetations, topsoils, river beds, lake beds into water bodies, hence most ions (Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+and NH4+) in rain water are also found in surface and groundwater (Imoisi et al., 2012).

The most familiar of these ions are Ca2+ and Mg2+ which interfere with the cleaning action of soap, and can form hard sulfate and soft carbonate deposits in water heaters or boilers.