Yahaya O., Akinro A.O., Mogaji Kehinde O., Ologunagba B.
Right Foundation Academy, Ikare-Akoko, Ondo-State, Nigeria; Department of Agricultural Engineering, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria; Department of Civil Engineering, Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, Nigeria; Department of Agricultural Enginee
Yahaya, O., Right Foundation Academy, Ikare-Akoko, Ondo-State, Nigeria; Akinro, A.O., Department of Agricultural Engineering, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria; Mogaji Kehinde, O., Department of Civil Engineering, Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, Nigeria; Ologunagba, B., Department of Agricultural Engineering, Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, Nigeria
An increasing world population exerts a continually growing demand on usable freshwater resource and matching the demand with supply of safe drinking water has resulted to serious social-economic constraints. Time and drudgery involved to access safe drinking resulted to loss of human capital, thus affects nearly every household activity. This paper focuses on the evaluation of Water Poverty Index (WPI) as an integrated tool veritable for all the local government areas in Ondo State of Nigeria to address their water sector. Simple time analysis and composite index approaches were employed to compute WPI values in all the sampled areas. Variables such as water resource, access to safe water, use of water and environmental impacts were considered. The ranking of WPI values from the two approaches shows that Ese-Odo is the most water-stressed with least WPI values of 10.1 points (composite index) and highest value of 1.4 minsl-1 (simple time analysis), while Owo, Ondo-West and Ose local government areas are less water stressed with WPI values of 0.55 minsl-1, 17.8; 0.53 minsl-1, 16.2; and 0.5 minsl-1, 17.1 respectively. The results obtained indicate that constructive investment in water and sanitation improves Human Development Index (HDI). However, this paper concludes that to prevent the occurrence of virtual water situation and improve water supply, researches of this nature should be conducted from time to time and government at all levels should holistically address the problem. © 2006-2009 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN).