The use and waste of water in a third world city

Abstract

All over the world, cities that are crossed by large rivers, have the great advantage of being able to meet their water needs. In the humid tropics, such cities should normally not experience water scarcity. Ilorin, the city under study is crossed by two fairly large rivers. The town is just about 100 km2 in area with a population less than 500,000. 3km E of the city, is a dam with a storage capacity of 43 million m3. The daily water production to the city is 661/person. When it is realized that less than 25% of the houses in the city have modern sanitary conveniences, then 661/person per day borders on over supply. Yet there is the cry of inadequate water supply from sections of the city. The habits of the city dwellers make them waste water. For example, mouth brushing alone takes about 2.4 I/person when the tap runs continuously. Secondly a bath with a 221 bucket of water is adequate for an adult, but when a shower bath is taken, about 841 will be required for about 15 minutes. This paper has examined the use and waste of water among the physical strata in the city. These strata coincide with the socio-economic strata. For an affluent class, a threshold water requirement of 521 is manageable, whereas in the Government Reservation area, the average is 82 1 (often includes waste). For the indigenous area, about 351 per day for an individual is the need, though the demand might be much higher than this value.