Geogenic contamination of groundwater in shallow aquifers in Ibadan, south-west Nigeria

Abstract

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine the presence of geogenic contaminants in groundwater from shallow aquifers of the crystalline basement complex rocks of Ibadan south-western, Nigeria.Design/methodology/approach– A total of 30 drinking water samples, (six samples each from the five major lithologic formations of the study area) were collected from hand dug wells during the rainy season. Atomic absorption spectrophotometry was used to determine concentrations of arsenic, iron and fluoride in drinking water samples and also concentrations of other chemical parameters that could affect the concentrations of the geogenic contaminants including pH, Ca, Mg, Na and SO42−. Descriptive statistics, multiple correlation and analysis of variance were used to examine the relationship between the geogenic contaminants and concentration of other chemical parameters while inverse distance weighting was used to produce risk maps.Findings– The results showed Arsenic concentration exceeding the WHO recommended concentration for drinking water in all the samples within the area. Samples from 16.6 per cent of the wells exceeded the recommended limit for fluoride while iron was present in most of the samples within acceptable limits. The study also revealed no significant difference in concentration of contaminants between the geologic formations.Originality/value– Geogenic contamination has been scarcely studied in Nigeria. This research, therefore, is a paradigm shift in the study of groundwater contamination which had been mainly focused on anthropogenic contaminants. The outcome of this research will engender policy makers and researchers to pay more attention to geogenic contamination than anthropogenic contaminants in Nigeria.