Groundwater Yield Modeling in the Floodplain of Hadejia, Northwestern Nigeria

Abstract

This paper proposed a model explaining variation of shallow groundwater yield and dynamic level with respect to river location in the floodplain of Hadejia, along Hadejia River Basin of Jigawa State, Northwestern Nigeria. To achieve the aim, six transects were established within one km2 of floodplain and were oriented perpendicular to the river channel. Three tube wells were sampled and positioned along each transect at regular intervals making a total of 18 wells. Pumping test, which was repeated four times at 15 minutes interval in both morning and evening hours was used to measure groundwater yield. Multivariate statistical tools such as analysis of variance, Pearson product moment correlation, and cluster analysis were used, respectively, to test the research hypothesis and to classify sampling points into similar groups based on groundwater yield. Results show that the average yield of wells for evening hours recorded a higher yield of 3.3 L/s (55.93%) than the yield in the morning hours of 2.6 L/s (44.07%). Further, the 2-way ANOVA at 5% level of significance showed no significant difference in the groundwater yield related to relative location of wells in morning (p value, 0.30>0.05) and evening (p value, 0.21>0.05) hours. The results of ANOVA revealed no statistically significant difference between the points. It suggests that the adopted model can be applied in other similar sedimentary basins with a view to validating it. A decision support system is recommended among the strategies to improve groundwater resources management in the area.