ABSTRACT
Water is one of the renewable resources essential for sustaining all forms of life, food production, economic development, and for general wellbeing. It is impossible to substitute for most of its uses, difficult to depollute, expensive to transport, and it is truly a unique gift to mankind from nature. In Nigeria today, water pollution is a major and alarming issue, since it has gone a long way in affecting the Health and well-being of individuals. The purpose of the study is to identify the causes of water pollution, and to examine the effect of water pollution on Health and wellbeing. This study discusses important aspect such as concept of pollution, water pollution, causes of water pollution, effect of water pollution on health and wellbeing, and water pollution crisis in African Countries
The descriptive research design was adopted for the study and a structured questionnaire of twenty-three (23) items was used to collect data. Two stage sampling technique was used to select respondents; the systematic sampling technique and balloting with replacement by 10%. The population of the study was seven thousand three hundred and sixty nine students (7369), representing full time undergraduate of the Faculty of Education with a sample size of one hundred and sixteen (116) undergraduates purposively selected from three departments. The instrument was validated by two experts from the Department of Health, Safety, and Environmental Education. The Cronbach’s Alpha reliability was used to ascertain a co-efficient of 0.75. The data collected was analyzed using frequency counts and percentage.
The analysis showed that 94.8% of students believe that human activities contribute in causing water pollution, and 97.4% agree that poor waste management can lead to/ or cause water pollution. It also showed that 81.9% of students believe that the consumption of polluted water can lead to the contamination of deadly diseases and illnesses and that it is wrong for students to store water in a dirty container. Finally, it showed that 90.5% of students believe that it is wrong for students to indiscriminately dispose waste in their environment. Recommendations were further made based on the findings by the Researcher.
