With 356,700 square miles within its borders, Nigeria is, in geographic terms, approximately 1.4 times as large as is the State of Texas. Nigeria's population in 1989 was estimated at 115.2 million, which makes it one of the 10 largest countries in the world in the context of total population. In terms of population, Nigeria is one of the world's fastest growing countries. Nigeria's population growth is illustrated in Chart 1, which may be found on the following page. The year 2105 shown in the chart is the year in which Nigeria's population is projected to stabilize.

In 1989 the population density in Nigeria was 322 persons per square mile. The country's crude death rate was 22.1 persons per 1,000 persons. The death rate has been declining since 1960 at the rate of 1.5 percent per year. The country's

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475 million  459

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Urban living creates ground water contamination primarily through the use of water as a medium for carrying sewage effluent, and the subsequent return of the water to the supply pool. Urban living also creates gound water contamination through automobile and household lawn wastes carried to the supply pool through surface runoff. As urbanization increases (as is occurring with unbelievable rapidity in Nigeria), the potential for ground water contamination increases, and, as the contamination potential increases, so do motivations for legislation to protect the purity of water supplies.

Council on Environmental Quality. (1982). The global 2000 report to the president. New York: Penguin Books, Ltd.