Multi-criteria analysis to determine groundwater potential zone in part of Gongola Basin, Northeast Nigeria

Abstract

Successful water management serves as a key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal number six as defined by the United Nations that is. ‘Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’. It is on this premise that the study wishes to carry out a Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) to determine groundwater potential zone in some part of Gongola basin, North East Nigeria. The research objectives focus on preparing thematic maps of various parameters for groundwater potential zone determination and performing multi-criteria analysis to determine groundwater potential zone. Alos Polsar Digital Elevation Model with a 12.5m resolution; Sentinel level 1C image of 10m resolution; soil and geology map of Nigeria; and rainfall data were used to determine selected twelve parameters namely Topographic Wetness Index (TWI), drainage, watershed, geomorphology, geology, slope, soil, rainfall, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), lineament, elevation and Modified Normalized Difference Water index (MNDWI). The parameters were resampled and reclassified to a common scale. They were integrated using the ESRI ArcMap 10.4.1 coupled with the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) as a veritable tool in Groundwater Potential Zone (GWPZ) determination. The GWPZ was classified into five classes with the very low potential zone covering 1275.23km² (20.6%), while the Low Potential covers an area of 1319.62km² (21.3%), moderate potential has an area of 1533.35km² (24.8%), high potential has an area of 1336.65km² (21.6%) and very high potential has an area of 724.83km² (11.7%). The study shows that the Northwest, West and Southwest of the study area have very low potential of Groundwater (GW). Conversely, the Northeast, East and Southeast have very high potential. The study recommend that the groundwater potential zone map combine with other thematic maps can function as source of database that can be updated overtime by adding new information to serve as resource material for further research.