WATER AND SANITATION

The purpose of good drinking water is to a large extent to minimize the prevalence of water borne diseases among household members. The source of drinking water is important because water borne diseases are common in Ghana and members of households are better off if they have access to good drinking water (Eastern Region PHC report, 2013).

Table 14 and Figure 8.2 present information on main source of drinking water and water for other domestic use, of dwelling unit at the District, regional and national level. The available information from the 2010 PHC reveals that, a greater proportion (50.8%) of the household use Bore-hole/Pump/Tube well as their main source of drinking water. This is also true for both regional and national level. Furthermore, households also derive their drinking water from River/Stream (16.0%) and protected well (15.3%). These followed Bore-hole/Pump/Tube well in highest order.

The table further showsthat, only few of the households have access to pipe-borne water inside dwelling unit(0.8%) and outside dwelling unit (4.2%). The 2010 Census information also indicates that, 4.3 percent of households drink from Unprotected well and 0.1 percent drinks from Unprotected spring and Dugout/Pond/Lake/Dam/Canal each. Whereas a higher proportion of the urban households use Protected well (37.7%) as their main source of drinking water, the rural households derive their main source of drinking water mainly from Bore-hole/Pump/Tube well (54.7%).

Information on sources of water for other domestic use on the other hand shows that about half of households use Bore-hole/Pump/Tube well (48.7%) for domestic purposes in the District. This is followed by Protected well (18.4%) and River/Stream (17.0%). The main source of water for other domestic use at the regional level is Bore-hole/Pump/Tube well (354,585). It can also be inferred from Table 8.10 that, the largest proportion of the District urban households (81.4%) uses Bore-hole/Pump/Tube well or Protected well as their main source of water for domestic use, while more than half of the rural household (52.3%) derive their main source of water for other domestic use from Bore-hole/Pump/Tube well.

Bathing and Toilet Facilities

This section discusses the use of bathing and toilet facilities in the Adansi South District. The total number of household using one form of toilet facility or the other is 24,046, representing 98.8 percent of the entire household in the District. As presented in Table 16 and Figure 8.3, the proportion of the household population that use public toilet (51.6%) is the highest compared to the national average of 34.6percent and regional proportion of 43.3 percent. The total of 1,580 households representing 6.2 percent however does not have access to any toilet facility and therefore resort to the use of bush, field or beach. The proportion of household in the rural locality with no access to toilet facility (6.2%), and those with pit latrine (34.3%) and public toilet facilities (52.9%) are relatively higher compared to those for urban locality ( 6.1%, 20.6% and 46.0% respectively).

Method of Waste Disposal

Analysis of method of solid and liquid waste disposal in the District reveals that most of the households dispose off their solid waste in open space public dumb (61.8%) and also throw their liquid waste onto the compound (54.3%). At the regional level, a higher proportion of the households(472,344), representing 41.9 percent dumb their solid waste in the public dumb (open space) whilst 29.4 percent (330,818) throw their liquid waste onto the compound. Comparably, at the national level, the majority (37.7%) of households dispose off their solid waste in the public dumb (open space) whilst 1,924,986 (35.2%) households throw their liquid waste onto their compound. The proportion also varies for both solid and liquid waste disposal in urban and rural households.