Assessment of rainwater harvesting as a supplement to domestic water supply: Case study in Kotei-Ghana

Abstract

Availability of good drinking water is critical for human health. Increasing demand of currently growing populations in sub Saharan Africa have culminated in many communities especially, the urban suburbs not able to have access to sufficient pipe-borne water from municipal distribution stations. This study was carried out to assess the quality of rainwater harvested in Kotei, a suburb of Kumasi in Ghana. In this study, twelve (12) different water samples comprising of spring water, tap water, rainwater and well water were collected in triplicates from randomly selected households from the study area. Results of the study showed that, physicochemical parameters based on rainwater harvested with respect to pH had  an acidity ranging  from 6.24 to 7.23. We sought to analysis the different sources of drinking water based on TDS and the results of the study also showed that, rainwater had a value that ranged  between 7.0  and 25.3 mgL^-1. Analysis of how the different sources of water would readily form lather with soap showed that, rainwater hardness varied from 6.3 to 10.7 mgL^-1. This could not be said however for the study when we  investigated the microbial levels of the different sources of water collected over the period.  With the exception of rainwater, all the other sources of water collected had no fecal coliform numbers in every 10mls of water sampled. It is an undeniable fact that, the perennial challenge of access to portable drinking water among low incomes nations in West Africa including Ghana would not be unravel any time soon. Our study has shown that, with the exception of microbial indicators, all the other  physicochemical water quality indicators could pass for safe consumption of harvested rainwater.

Keywords: Rainwater, harvest, water quality, fecal coliform, microbial quality