Umudike Journal of Engineering and Technology

Water  is an  essential  resource  for  sustainable  life  and  environment  which  is meant  to  be  available  in  abundance  and  free  gift of  nature.  Good drinking water quality is essential for our well-being irrespective of its source.  One of the most important crises of the 21^st century is the availability of drinking water, a resource that is essential for our survival and growth. This study is aimed at assessing and determining the trace elements in Issele-Mkpitime Lake, and the most relevant controls on the water quality. Trace elements may come from natural sources, leached from rock, and soils according to their geochemical mobility or anthropogenic sources as a result of human, land occupation and industrial pollution. Depending on their solubility, these metals may eventually become associated with suspended particulate matter and or accumulate in the bottom sediments. The total concentrations of sample site of trace elements such as zinc, lead, iron, sodium, manganese, Nickel, cadmium, copper, vanadium and others were determined using atomic absorption spectrophotometry method. The result of geochemical analysis carried out for the selected trace elements in Issele-Mkpitime Lake shows that sodium (Na) has the average concentration of 6.50(mg/l) which is above the WHO (2006 - 2010) standard for drinking water which is 0.03(mg/l), Nikel (Ni) and Vanadium (V) have the lowest concentration range of less than 0.001(mg/l) in all the locations. Checking out the range concentration of the trace elements in water samples from the study area shows that Ni, Cd, Zn, V, Cr have the range concentration of less than 0.001((mg/l) in some location while Lead range between 0.440 – 0.500 ((mg/l), Mn has 0.020((mg/l), Copper has the range concentration of 0.400 – 0.500((mg/l), and iron has the range concentration of 0.550 – 2.550((mg/l). In comparison with WHO standard for drinking water, elements like Na, Fe, Pb, Cr, V, falls below WHO standard for drinking water except for elements like Cu, Cd, Zn and Mn respectively that actually fall within the recommended limit