ASSESSMENT OF THE PHYSICO-CHEMICAL PARAMETERS OF SURFACE WATER OF MAIRUA DAM, FASKARI LGA, KATSINA STATE

Abstract

This research is focused on the assessment of the physico-chemical parameters and Water Quality Index (WQI) of water samples collected from Mairua Dam Northwestern Nigeria using standard analytical methods. The results obtained were compared to those of World Health Organization (WHO) 2011 recommended levels. The physico-chemical parameters determined were: pH ,Dissolve oxygen (DO), Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD),Total dissolve solids (TDS) ,Electrical conductivity (EC), Chloride ion (Cl-), Nitrate ion (NO₃^-),phosphate ion (PO₄^3-) and temperature.W1 is sampling point 1. pH, DO, BOD and TDS across the sampling points were found to be in the range of 8.1 ±0.03 (W11) to 8.68± 0.01 (W4), 1.20 ± 0.1 (W11) to 25.33 ± 0.58, 0.60 ± 0.00 (W2) to 12.33 ± 0.58 (W1) to 139 1 ± 0.1 (W2) to 1142.50 ± 3.8 (W1) mg/L, respectively. Similarly, those of EC, Temperature, Cl^-, NO₃ ^- and PO₄^3- were; 165.3 ± 0.6 (W3) to 11355.0 ± 5.00 (W1), 25 0C (W2) to 29 0C (W8) , 15.6 ± 0.01(W2) to 235.93 ± 0.01(W1) BDL
(W8, W11) to 20.23 ± 0.25 (W1) and BDL (W2,W3,W5,W7,W8.W9) to 0.70 ± 0.00 (W1) mg/L, respectively. Thus, the levels of DO, BOD, TDS, EC and temperature were above the WHO (2011) permissible limits for W1,W4 and W6; W1,W1,W3,W4,W5; W1,W4 and W1,W3,W4,W5,W6,W7W8,W9,W10,W11 samples respectively. However the pH, Cl^- ,NO₃^- and PO₄ ^3- were found to be within the permissible limits set by WHO (2011). The concentrations of physico-chemical parameters analyzed across the sampling points were in the following order WI˃W2 ˃W4˃W5˃W6˃W3 = W7˃W8˃W10˃W9˃W11. The WQI recorded in this study was 64.969. Thus, the samples were found to be poor to be used for both domestic and agricultural purposes without subjecting it to further  treatment. Subjecting the data to statistical analysis revealed that there was no significant difference in the levels of the analyzed physico-chemical parameters at p <0.05 across the sampling sites. This clearly shows that the samples have a common source of pollution.