Analysis of Accessibility and Distribution of Domestic Water Supply in Nassarawa Local Government Area of Kano State, Nigeria.

Abstract

In most developing countries, it has been recognized that public water utilities have been grappling with the problem of providing adequate water services to its populations. Nassarawa LGA of Kano state. Nigeria is a typical community that is presently not being serviced by such water utilities due to the inability of the state water agency (SWAs) in supplying enough water to the area. Households therefore seek other alternative sources including patronizing water vendors. Questionnaires were designed to collect information on socio economic characteristics, water sources, location, and pipe borne connection, frequency of flow by hours, water vendors’ patronage and type. A total of 384 respondents were sampled, out of which 284 residents and 100 water vendors were sampled respectively. The study showed that majority of the vended water is sourced from outside Nasarawa LGA and mostly from shallow wells/stand pumps located at the extreme north western part of the study area bordering Fagge LGA and Ungongo, and Kumbotso LGAs which is about 3 – 4 km away from Nasarawa LGA. it was also found that majority (64.1%) the residents in the study area patronise the services of water vendor, with majority (81.3%) buying their water from pushcarts water vendors, while 15.4% buy theirs from tanker truck vendors and the least patronised were head carriage vendors. daily patronage of vendor service dominated the frequency of respondent’s patronage of vended water supply. it was found that most households (51.0%) are not connected to pipe borne water network connection. among those connected, majority (45.3%) receives duration of water flow from the tap between 1.5-6hoursthe study recommended that, efforts should be made by government to expand pipe borne network coverage to every household in the study area and in the case of inabilities of the authorities to achieve 100% household connection alternative efforts too should be made to strategically and randomly construct public water stations, boreholes to serve remote areas.