Comparison Of Water Quality From Boreholes And Hand-Dug Wells Around And Within Malete, Kwara State, Nigeria
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Date
2025-05
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
iosrjournals.org
Abstract
The increase in water consumption and health challenge in Malete as a result of increase in population of
students and migrants cause an alarm. This study was carried out to compare the quality of selected machine
drilled boreholes and hand dug wells for drinking. Samples were taken from six locations around and within
Malete, Kwara State, Nigeria and tested for physicochemical and microbiological parameters using standard
analytical methods. Range of values obtained for the various parameters for borehole samples are: Colour (9-
57.00 PCU), turbidity (0.00 FTU), conductivity (101.14-303.38 FTU), total dissolved solids (TDS) (148.57-
266.29 mg/L), total alkalinity (12.33-20.00 mg/L), Iron (0.01- 1.97 mg/L), Nitrate (2.89-8.11 mg/L), pH (3.86-
6.08 mg/L), hardness (17.1-68.4 mg/L), Manganese (0-0.13 mg/L), Coliform (0.12-0.22 cfu/mL) and
Escherichia coli (0 cfu/mL). While values obtained for well samples are: Colour (35-177.57 PCU), turbidity
(6.25-45.86 FTU), conductivity (139.57-300.78 FTU), TDS (525.50-801.11 mg/L), total alkalinity (116.03-
208.07 mg/L), Iron (0.04-0.21 mg/L), Nitrate (6.77- 12.01 mg/L), pH (4.76-5.95 mg/L), hardness (34.2-85.5
mg/L).. Borehole water had values for most parameters within the stipulated Nigerian standard for drinking
water quality. However, pH values of borehole samples were very low, thus indicating that both borehole and
well water require treatment before drinking.