Articles

Organochlorine Pesticide Quantification of Otogor Wetland Ughelli Delta for Secondary Schools Cage Aquaculture for Hunger Eradication in Nigeria

United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2 requires all member Nations to achieve zero hunger by 2030. Agriculture especially aquaculture adopting cage technique has been recognised as a very viable option in achieving this set goal. Aquaculture requires water devoid of pollutants and that underscores the study. This is an ex-post facto research that answered 3 research questions and tested a hypothesis and its focus is on the determination of the organochlorine pesticides content of Otogor wetland for cage aquaculture in secondary schools for zero hunger. To achieve this, Otogor wetland was mapped out into research cells A, B, C, D, E. From each of the cells, water was sampled with clean sampling bottle tied to a graduated string from 5 spots at 10 cm depth. The water samples from each cell were then bulked, a composite drawn, fixed with HNO3 and stored in ice cooled box for analysis. The analytical standards adopted were USEPA 3570, APHA, Steindwandter and Shufter 1978. The analytical instrument deployed for determination is Agilent 6100 series single quadrupole LC/MS. The mean results of the organochlorine pesticides investigated in Otogor wetland were DDT 1.27±0.21μg/l, heptachlor 3.01±0.45μg/l, a-lindane 0.33±0.09μg/l, adrin 3.52±1.00 μg/l and endrin 0.32±0.11μg/l. The results of the organochlorine pesticides investigated were subjected to test of significance with ANOVA with numerator 4 and denominator 20. The F ratio calculated value is 5.59 while F ratio critical value is 2.87, thus rejecting Ho and accepting Ha. The study thus recommend that cage aquaculture should not be deployed in Otogor wetland with the present pollution status. The pollutants source point should be identified and discontinued and remediation should be commissioned in Otogor wetland to return the wetland to its healthy state to allow for the deployment of cage aquaculture for youths empowerment for zero hunger in Nigeria.