Assessment of groundwater recharge potential in a typical geological transition zone in Bauchi, NE-Nigeria using remote sensing/GIS and MCDA approaches

Abstract

The increasing demand for water occasioned by harsh climatic conditions, population explosion, and increasing urbanization has necessitated more attention and reliance on groundwater resources, particularly in water-limited regions. Thus, judicious management of available groundwater resources becomes crucial to meet the freshwater requirements in such zones. In this study, remote sensing and geographic information system were deployed to delineate groundwater recharge zones in semi-arid geological transition zones of Bauchi, northeastern Nigeria.Seven thematic layers comprising elevation, slope, land use/land cover, drainage density, lithology, magnetic lineament density, and hydraulic head were integrated based on their degree of influence in groundwater recharge. Normalization of the weights was achieved through the analytical hierarchical process (AHP), while the overall integration of the thematic maps was actualized by overlay analysis in ArcGIS 10.3.1 environment to generate a final groundwater recharge zone map of the area.The resulting map was delineated into three different zones: low, moderate, and high, occupying 20% (627 km 2 ), 77% (2352 km 2 ), and 3% (80 km 2 ) respectively. The overall assessment of recharge zones revealed that a high percentage of the southwestern part of the study are characterized dominantly by poor groundwater recharge potential, attributable to high elevations and impervious rock outcrops with associated steep slopes, thus limited infiltration owing to the high velocity of runoff. The northwestern and parts of the southwestern zones, underlain by migmatite/gneiss, and partly granites, however, exhibited medium-low recharge potential, owing to the occurrence of considerably lower altitudes and occupied by thicker regoliths and underlying rocks of mediumhigh lineament densities. The sandstones revealed predominantly medium-high recharge potential, attributable to high permeability, lower hydraulic heads, and relatively flat geomorphology which enhances meteoric recharge and base flow processes.

Delineation of Groundwater Potential Zones (GWPZs) in a Semi-Arid Basin through Remote Sensing, GIS, and AHP Approaches

“…Rainfall is the primary hydrological source of groundwater recharge in semi-arid areas and tends to present patterns of high frequency-amount and short duration [59,123,124]. In this research, rainfall is the 5th essential variable with a normalized weight of 0.08 (Table 3).…”

“…A steep slope retains little time the water on the surface, decreasing infiltration and groundwater recharge due to the runoff flowing rapidly. Meanwhile, flat areas have high infiltration rates and low runoff, which favors the recharge [59,60].…”

“…Figure 9 shows the LULC map for the study area derived from the Supervised Classification. Bare ground encloses 45.28% of the basin and generally refers to areas with rocky outcrops and a lack of vegetation; thus, its groundwater potential is low (Tables 5 and 6) [2,58,59]. Vegetation represents 33.88% of the area (Table 6) and comprises chaparral, natural grassland, scrub, and in the highest altitudes of the SSM, a pine-oak forest ecosystem [18,129].…”

A Spatial Decision Support Approach for Flood Vulnerability Analysis in Urban Areas: A Case Study of Tehran

“…On the one hand, GIS-technology provides a comprehensive tool for storing, manipulating, analysing, and representing geographical information, while MCDA yields a rich array of structural methods and algorithms for decision making, design, evaluation, and prioritization of options. The idea behind this integration is to extend GIS-based technology to give the user (decision maker) a degree of control over preferences (priorities of options) [23,24]. The main relevance of MCDA to spatial decision making is its capacity for identifying the most optimal solution and constructing a structured and creative approach to problem solving [25,26].…”

Initial evaluation of land use potential using geospatial analysis at Sendang Biru Beach, Malang Regency, East Java Province, Indonesia

“…Design of wetlands in urban construction based on the ArcGIS system to encourage residents to participate in urban park development, urban planning, and urban development [16], classify land cover and assess the impact of agricultural expansion on land surface temperature (LST) in El Province Beheira, Egypt. four categories of agricultural land cover, urban, desert and waterland were distinguished and mapped using ArcGIS Desktop 10.6 [17], integration of thematic maps was actualized with overlay analysis ArcGIS 10.3.1 resulting in groundwater recharge zone maps GIS based recharge maps for managers water and urban planners [18].…”