CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND

Water is one of the essential necessities of nature, indispensible to all organic life and a necessary resource for livelihood; so therefore, its importance cannot be overemphasized. It is however alarming that this requisite resource is becoming scarce everyday due to booming industrialization and increasing population. According to WHO/UNICEF (2000), 1.1 billion people in the world do not have access to potable water. This is more intense in the rural parts of developing and under-developed countries where reports show that over 70% of the people have no access to safe water for domestic use, so they depend mostly on surface water (from lakes, ponds, streams, rainfall, rivers) for sustenance. Surface sources however, are not dependable or reliable because they are associated with high evaporation rates, often susceptible to pollution and waterborne diseases. In other for surface water to be safe for use, especially domestic use, it needs to be treated and these rural communities cannot afford these treatments, hence, they use these water for their day to day activities which in the long run result to outbreaks of waterborne diseases such as typhoid, cholera, hepatitis etc.

Groundwater which exists in the pores of subsurface sedimentary rocks and fissures/fractures of basement rocks are protected and covered from pollution and evaporation, as such, are potable for domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes (Alisiobi and Ako, 2012). Groundwater has so many advantages over surface water, from its potability, availability all year long (even in areas affected by drought) to the fact that it can be found almost at any spot of its need beneath the earth, ready to be exploited. These benefits have made groundwater most sort out for.

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