Evaluation of Water Quality Index of River Musa for Drinking Purpose in Bida, Nigeria

Abstract

River Musa in Bida, Nigeria is of great importance to the people of the town and its environs. Due to the indiscriminate disposal of domestic and industrial effluents into the river, there is a need to evaluate the river water quality for drinking purpose. The objective of this study was to evaluate some selected physicochemical parameters (Total dissolved solids (TDS), pH, ammonia (NH4), Sodium, Calcium, Magnesium and four heavy metals ( Fe, Pb, Cu and Mn)) of water from River Musa to reveal the detailed water quality of the river for its suitability for drinking purpose. To achieve this objective, the Canadian Council Water Quality index (CCWQI) was applied to the analytical results of the selected parameters to obtain a single value that was used to rank the river at each of the sampling locations. The annualaverage water quality indexes (for both rainy and dry season) at five locations are (40.9, 42, 40, 39.1 and 37.5). The results showed that the water quality of the entire river is poor (39.9) and the river water is not suitable for drinking purposes.