Groundwater survey in bida basin, niger state nigeria using electrical resistivity data and three-dimensional geographical information system.

Abstract
Societal demand for portable water has been severely limited due to inadequacies of surface water sources of water supply with particular references to its degraded water quality status. Occurrences are often due to unavoidable environmental hazard across the Bida basin, Nigeria. Exploring the excellent natural quality of groundwater resources to improve the surface water inadequacies becomes imperative to ensure water resources security. This research explore the potential of volume visualization and reliability attributes of Three-Dimensional Geographical Information System (3D GIS) technique to model groundwater using electrical resistivity data in Bida basin. The 3D GIS attributes enhances its prediction accuracies in decision making process compared to the most often used 2D GIS technique. The interpreted results of the electrical resistivity data delineated three to five lithological units namely clay, sandy, sandy clay, clay sandy, sandstone with the sandy clay formation mapped as the most probable aquifer unit in the area. The resistivity and thickness values of these lithological units range between 452 ῼm to 934 ῼm and 10.27m to 54.10 m across the study area, respectively. The results of the spatial distribution of the mapped aquifer units via application of 2D GIS geostatistical technique established a relative depth of declining towards the southern part of Bida basin, at an average of 10m. With the application of the 3D Tetrahedron Network (TEN) model, the 3D lithological analysis gave an insight into determining the influence of spatial variation of the lithological units on the aquifer potential in the basin. The result of the applied 3D Lagrangian approach based on the Darcy’s theory of groundwater flow for simulation of lithologic layers above the aquiferous units on a time scale between 30 minutes to 4 Hours enabled evaluation of the overburden layer influence on the aquiferous yield potential in the study area. The obtained 3D simulation results shows that the productiveness of the area aquifer potential is proportional to the nature and aggregate of particle sizes of the overburden formation. Therefore, harnessing the hydrological information on the applied 3D GIS technique on modelling geoelectrical data will enhance prediction accuracy of prolific potential zones and thus leading to reliable development of groundwater resources at minimal cost and highly efficient.
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