Population in Adamawa Plateau faced to borehole failure and return to alternative water supply structures (wells and catchments) with a doubtful quality. This study was carried out to highlight the location of aquifers, their hydrodynamics characteristics and groundwaters quality in Mbakaou locality, which belong to the Adamawa Region. Combination of geological and geoelectrical surveys at 10 stations, with hydrodynamic study of 4 boreholes were carried out to characterize aquifers. Hydrochemical analysis of 10 waters samples has been done to determine physico-chemical water quality and origin of waters mineralization. Geological studies show that basement rocks, which constitute fractured aquifers, consists of a large assemblage of granitoid. Geophysics and drilling data highlight superficial aquifers located between 2 and 17 m and fractured aquifers located between 11 and 74 m, with resistivity ranging from 50 to 671 Ω.m. The borehole have yield varying between 2.80 and 5.14 m3/h. Transmissivity and permeability ranging from 10-6 to 10-5 m2/s and 10-7 to 10-6 m/s respectively, indicating that aquifers are semi-permeable. Waters are of good quality compared to WHO norms and weakly mineralized (35 to 247.9 mg/l). Piper diagram show that calcium and magnesium bicarbonate facies is dominant. Mineralisation of water is mainly influenced by water-rock interaction through silicate weathering.
Management of groundwater require knowing their qualities and hydrogeochemical processes whereby these waters acquire their mineralization. The population of Mbakaou in Adamawa Plateau consumes groundwater from a doubtful quality water supply structures (wells, boreholes and catchments). This study was carried out to highlight groundwater quality and processes that govern water mineralization. So, to achieve this, 11 water samples were analyzed (1 rain water, 1 well, 3 springs and 6 boreholes). After analyzing the samples and comparing the obtained values to World Health Organization (WHO) standards, multivariate statistical analysis including Principal Component Analysis (PCA) were applied. Results show that these waters samples are fresh, generally of good quality compared to WHO standards and weakly mineralized (35 to 247.9 mg/l), due to the short residence time. Calcium and magnesium bicarbonate facies is the main water type. Nitrates are the most common pollutants and reveal high vulnerability of saprolite aquifer than fractured aquifer. The groundwater mineralization is influenced by precipitation, base ion exchange process, anthropogenic activities and water-rock interaction through silicate weathering. The PCA analysis yielded three factors that explained 89.33 % of the total variance. Factor 1 (62.60 %), factor 2 (15.54 %) and factor 3 (11.19 %) made respectively the difference between water samples influenced by precipitation or water rock interaction from those influenced by both water-rock interaction with precipitation or anthropogenic activities and those for water rock interaction with ion exchange process.
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