Assessing Households' Potable Water Access in Sibi in the Nkwanta North District of Ghana

Keywords: Potable water, Access, Households, OpenStreetMaps, Sibi, Ghana
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract

Abstract

Access to potable water is among the most powerful drivers of human development as it affects the quality of life, especially people's well-being. Despite UN efforts to achieve equal access to water, potable water access is still a major challenge in Sibi, one of the communities in the Nkwanta North district of Ghana. The people of this community break there backbone to access water which potability is highly questionable. This study sought to assess the level of access to potable water in Sibi using Penchansky and Thomas (1981) access model and also examine the household water management strategies in Sibi. Building footprints, road networks and surface water sources were mapped from self created humanitarian mapping task in the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Task (HOT) manager. Artificial water point sources that were not identified on the Bing aerial images in the HOT manager was mapped on the field using SW-Map android GPS application. Aster DEM was downloaded from USGS earthdata website. Responses from the household heads were also collected using questionnaire survey. A sample of 301 household heads were reached using cluster and simple random sampling techniques. The results were presented in the form of Maps, charts and tables. The results indicated that there was inadequate potable water access in Sibi as there was insufficient water sources within the community. The average waiting time to access water was up to 2 hours. The study recommended to the local development authorities in Ghana and NGOs to support the community with potable water sources.