water sources, infrastructure, space and the dynamics of ...

Water sources, infrastructure, space and the dynamics of environmental diseases in Saboba District: Using GISSpace and incidence of RTILike Malaria and Typhoid, Table 20 shows that the correlation issignificant at 0.001 between RTI and the distance to major towns inSaboba district. The explanations are that, 1) though there are fewcars/vehicles on the highways, their number (usually withoutenvironmental regulations) is greater in the townships causing a lot ofemissions and dust, and 2) the relative concentration of populations inthe townships and the use of woodfuel for cooking exposes greaternumber of people to smoke from burning wood. The latter explains whymore women (54.5%) than men (45.5%) are affected with RTI asmentioned above. Even though, the residents in the Saboba Townshiphave better defence mechanisms such as education, wealth etc (seeconceptual framework) and are therefore able to reduce the hazards ofenvironment, those defence mechanisms does not prevent emission anddust from vehicular movement. The third reason may be due to lowhospital attendance of the peripheral areas.There was no significant correlation between RTI and distances to roadsin Saboba district (Table 21). The only possible relationship betweenroads and respiratory diseases is through the emissions and dust fromcars/vehicular movement in the third class roads in the district.However, with few numbers of vehicles that plies the roads,characterised by potholes, serve to limit or reduce speed and thus helpedto minimise the emission of smoke and dust. However, the emissionsand dust may be greater in Saboba Township due to its nodal nature interms of vehicular movement. The widespread of bushfires, the high useof woodfuel and charcoal for cooking and the kaekae (North-East tradewinds), accompanied by dust (harmattan winds) may explain thewidespread of respiratory diseases in the district, irrespective ofgeography, except in Saboba Township, where its nodal nature invehicular movement may have worsen its case.Table 22 shows that there is no significant correlation (0.104 levels)between RTI and land-cover type. The reason is that; 1) Saboba districtis generally an open savannah area with similar characteristics, 2) thedistrict is predominantly farming communities that use the slash and burnmethod of land preparation without any geographic differences, and 3)the North-East trade winds (Harmattan) accompanied by dust affect thewhole district irrespective of the location, with the exception of therelatively populated Saboba township which is more disposed torespiratory diseases due to concentration of cars/vehicles and burning offuelwood during cooking.Position of the hypothesisThis part validates or otherwise of the hypothesis of the study. Thestated hypothesis is that;There is a significant relationship between distances to the main town, roads,watercourses, the type of land cover and elevation on one hand and environmentaldiseases on the other in Saboba district.Tables 13, 17 and 20 show an inverse significant relationship at 0.001levels between distances to the main town and the three leading(environmental) diseases (Malaria, Typhoid and RTI) in the district. Thismeans that environmental diseases decrease from the main town towardsthe periphery. Table 14 also shows that incidence of Malaria and distanceto roads has an inverse significant relationship at 0.05 levels. The reasonsfor these trends have been stated above. However, Tables 15, 16, 18, 19,21 and 22 showed that there is no significant relationship between45