Assessing Community Perceptions on Implication of Water Resource Degradation to the Access of Wash Services: Case of Ankobra Basin, Ghana

Abstract

Government of Ghana has put huge effort to assure access to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) services to all citizens in the country. It has strengthened legislation and allocated more budget to wash sector. Unfortunately, lack of proper actions to prevent water resource degradation risk to create a setback in access to WASH services in Ghana. We have set up this study in order to understand the view of citizens on the link between water resources protection and sustainable WASH. We carried out a survey to find out if people understand contribution of forest, wetlands to purify surface water, and we also monitored chemical parameters of domestic water. Twothird of water quality samples were deemed as high risk, and definitely unsafe or probably unsafe to drink.