From Charity Nwakaudu, Abuja
Minister of Water Resources Suleiman Adamu has urged the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) to make deliberate efforts to provide a sustainable technical framework that will ease access to Nigeria’s groundwater.
The minister made the call at the National Stakeholders’ Workshop on the drafting of the National Groundwater accessment strategic plan for NIgeria held in Abuja, Wednesday.
Adamu stated that 60 per cent of the diseases in developing countries are gotten through unsafe water supply and inadequate sanitation, saying that the provision of water supply systems in Nigeria is both important and urgent.
“Diseases related to drinking water contamination represent a major burden on human health and the interventions to improve the quality of drinking water provide significant benefits to health.
He further added that groundwater was a critical stakeholder in the Global Climate Change adaptation and the theme of this year’s World Water Day Celebration, “Making the Invisible, Visible” has made it mandatory to establish a robust Ground Water Resources Management plan.
“In 2012, the International Groundwater Assessment Centre, under the auspices of the World Metrological Organisation, launched a global monitoring network.
“Nigeria as a global player in the sub-Saharan region cannot be left behind in policy-making concerning groundwater management.
The current state of 73 groundwater management stations established by NIHSA ,falls short of the initial minimum requirements of 200 planned to have been acheived by the year 2020,” he added.
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He also said that the essence of the meeting was to deliberate on the groundwater assessment requirements and program formulation to provide the susteinable technical framework to access and monitor the quantity and quality of the nations groundwater resources.
“NIHSA Is empowered with the mandate of providing services required for accessment for the nations surface and underground water resources in terms of quantity, quality, distribution and availability.
“It is my fervent hope and wishes that after this stakeholders workshop, we can finally come up with a reliable estimation of the country’s groundwater potentials.
“Also at regular intervals of time,there should be a forecast predicting the accurate status of underground water, its quantity and quality as we are currently doing with the flood outlook,” he added.
Director General, Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) in his remarks earlier stated that the essence of the workshop was to having a good grip on how to make proper use of groundwater in Nigeria.
“At least 3 years maximum, we should be able to make a statement that will guide policymakers and professional bodies including bore hole drillers on how much water is available underground.
“This is very important so that people can stop mining water, nature doesn’t replace water at that rate at which bore-hole drillers and other users extract it,” he added.