GEOSPATIAL INVESTIGATION OF GROUNDWATER POTENTIAL ZONES IN KACHIA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA
GEOSPATIAL INVESTIGATION OF GROUNDWATER POTENTIAL ZONES IN KACHIA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA
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Date
2016-08
Authors
KUHIYOP, Mary Edward
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Abstract
Water is a renewable resource which occurs in three forms liquid, solid, vapor (gaseous), all of which extremely useful to man.The water is not only essential for survival of human beings, but also for animals, plants and other living beings. The present study attempted to identify the groundwater potential zones in Kachia Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria using remote sensing and GIS techniques as well as electrical resistivity method for validation. The study made use of thematic maps like lineament, geology, land use and land cover, drainage, slope, elevation and soil map as GIS layers in geo-database and assigning weightages based on the pair-wise comparison of the factors that appear to be important in holding / processing recharge of water and ground water potential. By integration of weightages to acquire more effective score to demarcate the ground water potential zone in the present land units. The result of the study shows that topography, rainfall, drainage density, lineament density, geology, soil, slope steepness and landuse/landcover contribute significantly to groundwater prospects in the study area.Rainfall, soiland lineament density were identified as the highest factor contributing to ground water prospect with 34% and 24% respectively. The very good groundwater potential zones were identified in the eastern areas while the areas with low potential lie in the western areas.The result also shows that very good groundwater potential zones occupies a coverage of about 14.1%, good potential constitute 22.4%, moderate occupies 15.0% while fair and low constitute of 23.9% and 24.6% of the study area respectively. Kurmin Mata was identified to have a very high ground water potential within the study area. The result of the study also shows that the higher the aquifer thickness and depth the better the groundwater potential from both resistivity method and GIS and remote sensing. It is therefore recommended that ground water potential zones mapping should be carried out for the entire country to serve as guide for water resources agencies.
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A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF A MASTER DEGREE IN REMOTE SENSING AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY FACULTY OF SCIENCE AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA NIGERIA
Keywords
GEOSPATIAL INVESTIGATION,, GROUNDWATER POTENTIAL ZONES,, KACHIA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA,, KADUNA STATE,, NIGERIA