Application of Water Poverty Index (WPI) in Assessing Water Accessibility in the Rural Suburbs of Ogbomoso Zone of Oyo State, Nigeria

Unrestricted access to potable water is required for a healthy living but access to the resource in Nigeria is about 42%. Thus a research to assess accessibility to potable water in the rural areas of Ogbomoso zone of Oyo State Nigeria was conducted using water poverty index combined with field observations. One hundred and fifty questionnaires were administered across fifty randomly selected households in each of the three LGAs (Ogo-Oluwa, Oriire and Surulere LGAs). The results showed that Ogo-Oluwa has 34.70, Oriire, 20.60 and Surulere, 15.26 out of 100 obtainable, which implies that the study area is water poor. Among the causes of this status include peasantry living of the respondents, high level of illiteracy, ignorance of record keeping, poor maintenance of water facilities, erratic power supply among others. To check the problem of poor water accessibility, government and non-governmental agencies should encourage small and medium scale businesses, irrigation farming among others in order to boost the economic status of the rural dwellers. Further investigation into water scarcity scenario in the rural areas is required to establish models for checkmating the water poverty in the rural areas.