ASSESSMENT OF ESSENTIAL METAL CONTENT OF DRINKING WATER SOURCES IN ABIA STATE OF NIGERIA

Water is an essential and highly scarce resource for human being whose demand has always been driven by population pressure and huge demands for water in meeting various anthropogenic needs. Compounding the water challenge is climate change which affects not only the water availability but also quality, demand and use The 2008 report of UNEP stated that one-third of the African population now live in drought-prone areas, and almost all the Sub-Saharan African countries will experience water stress by 2025. Water quality is the most fundamental controlling factor when it comes to health and the state of diseases in both humans and animals. According to WHO report of 2013, about 80% of all the human diseases in human beings are caused by water. Trace metals, among a wide range of contaminants, are consistently of health concern due to their toxicity potentials at very low concentrations, and tendency to bioaccumlate in tissues of living organisms over time. They gain entrance into human systems via contaminated drinking water, food and air. Manganese is an essential metal needed by the body in small amount. This work assesses the concentration of Magnesium (Mg), Calcium (Ca) and Sodium (Na) in drinking water sources collected from different locations in Abia of Nigeria. A total of 50 (14 boreholes (BH), 13 stream (ST), 11 spring (SP), 10 hand-dug wells (WE), 2 river (RV)) drinking water sources were collected, preserved and analysed using standard methods. Concentration of the metals in the water samples were determined using Agilent 55B Atomic Absorption Spectrometer. The concentrations were compared with admissible and desirable limit National Standard for Drinking Water Quality (NSDWQ). Data analysis of data generated for stream, spring, well and river, borehole water sample was performed using IBM SPSS version 20 and Microsoft Excel 2013. The descriptive statistical tables showing the range, minimum, maximum, mean, standard deviation for all the water samples from the five states where samples were collected from are presented in figures and table. The mean ranges (mg/L) for borehole, stream, spring and well calculated are: 6.38, 0.89, 20.72; 5.57, 2.76, 4.71; 5.49, 1.21, 2.72; 14.81, 0.89, 0.49 for calcium, magnesium and sodium respectively. Comparing these values with NSDWQ recommended tolerable limit guideline of 0.2 mg/l of magnesium, 75 mg/l for calcium and 200 mg/l for sodium in drinking water, shows that some of the sampled water sources are unfit for drinking.