As Nigeria joins the rest of the World to celebrate this year’s World Water Day, an expert, Dr Yusuf Garba, has explained how indiscriminate digging of boreholes is dangerous to people’s health.
Garba, a lecturer with the Department of Environmental Science of Bayero University, said the practice of digging borehole reduced the quantity of underground water in the affected areas.
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According to him, “The level of water in the soil increases by an aquifer.
“There is an impervious surface in the soil where the water penetrating into the soil forms, just the way you see it in ponds, that is exactly how water is in the soil.
“So, when bore-holes are rampantly drilled in a particular area, depending on its water level, it usually decreases and makes it always go down.
“Excessive drilling makes the water level to be going down every day and in some cases to even dry up.
“That is why in areas where a lot of boreholes are sunk, like Janbulo in Kano for instance if you drill a small bore-hole you won’t even get water.
“What is recommended instead is the construction of dams as an alternative to the excessive drilling of boreholes,” he advised.
