Microbial and Physco-Chemical Characteristics of Common Water Sources in The Tolon District of Ghana: A Previously Guinea Worm Endemic Area

Water is said to be safe for human and agricultural purposes when it has biological, physical, and chemical parameters within the threshold set by WHO and other Standard Authorities. Access to quality water is a major challenge in developing countries. Consequently, UN SDG 6 targets to achieve universal access to safe and quality water by 2030. Tolon District of the Northern Region of Ghana is a deprived, previously guinea worm endemic area with 4 predominant water sources: dams, taps, wells, and boreholes, whose water quality parameters have not been established collectively in a comparative manner to enable inhabitants to select the one with good quality. Samples of 21 waters were taken from these four predominant water sources in the 6 most populated settlements of the District. The samples were analysed for 10 physco-chemical and microbial water quality parameters including microbial culture, wet prepping, pH, cadmium and lead concentration, turbidity, electrical conductivity, total dissolve solids, and total suspended solid. From the analysis, well water had the highest (80%) of these parameters outside the WHO threshold, immediately followed by dam water (70%). Tap and bore-hole water had the same number of parameters (40%) above the WHO recommendation for water quality. The poor level of water quality indicators in well and dam water, which are open sources, could be attributed to their risk to pollutants from the dumping of waste, animal excreta, erosion and unclean water harvesting equipment. Economic water treatment systems such as filtration and alum sedimentation are required to reduce their risk of contamination of daw and well water in the area. Further research is required to characterise the microorganism for policy formulation on eradication in order to improve public health in the District.