The circumstances of available water to many Districts in Ghana reflect the global
situation where water supplies needed for development are scarce and often polluted. This has
prompted the digging of numerous boreholes in many rural communities in Ghana. Though
the numbers of boreholes are impressive, there is the need to determine and monitor the
quality of water that is being drawn for human activity.
This work determined physicochemical parameters of water from 21 boreholes from 13
communities in the Ejisu-Juaben (EJ) and 17 boreholes in 11 communities in the Bosomtwi-
Atwima-Kwanwoma (BAK) districts of the Ashanti Region of Ghana (West Africa) within
the period of November 2004 to June 2005 with the aim of accessing the quality.
Water samples were analysed for pH, Electrical Conductivity (EC), Turbidity, Colour,
Total Hardness, Total Alkalinity TDS, SO4
2-, Cl-, PO4
3-, NO2
- , Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn, Cd, Na, K and
Pb.
The UV-Visible Spectrophotometer was used to determine SO4
2-, PO4
3- and NO2
-
concentration. An atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer was used to determine Fe, Mn, Cu,
Zn, Cd, Pb. A flame photometer was used for the determination of Na and K, and titrimetry
was employed to measure Alkalinity, Hardness and Chloride content.
The data showed the variation of the investigated parameters in samples as follows: pH
4.0-8.0, Electrical Conductivity (EC) 44 - 1114 ìScm-1, Turbidity 0.11 - 45 NTU, Colour <5-
60 HU, TDS 31 -779 mgl-1, hardness 3-402 mgl-1, alkalinity 10-365 mgl-1 ,Cl- 5.0 - 92 mgl-1,
SO4
2- 0.25-17.0 mgl-1, PO4
3- 0-2.4 mgl-1 and NO2
-
0-0.08 mgl-1.
The rest were Fe 0.01-3.4 mgl-1, Mn 0-1.65 mgl-1, Cu 0.01 -1.3 mgl-1, Zn 0-3.3 mgl-1,
Cd 0 - 0.059 mgl-1, Pb 0-0.038 mgl-1, Na 4-87.0 mgl-1 and K 0.2-68 mgl-1.
With the exception of isolated cases of trace metal contamination and turbidity, the
general results showed that water from the boreholes in the two districts had acceptable
chemical quality for household activities