Vertical electrical sounding to delineate the potential aquifer zones for drinking water in Niamey city, Niger, Africa

Abstract

Niger is a landlocked African country and the only source of surface water is the Niger River which flows in the western part of Niger and only few villages near to the river gets benefited from it, leaving most of the areas dependent on groundwater solely. The groundwater resources in Niger are mainly used for drinking, livestock and domestic needs. It can be observed that the water exploitation is minimal there due to several factors like undeveloped areas, less population, limited wells, rain-fed irrigation, etc. The delineation of potential aquifer zones is an important aspect for groundwater prospecting. Hence, the direct current (DC) resistivity soundings method also known as vertical electrical sounding (VES) is one of the most applied geophysical techniques for groundwater prospecting that was used in the capital city, Niamey of Niger. Twelve VES surveys, each of AB spacing 400 m were carried out in lateritic and granitic rock formations with a view to study the layer response and to delineate the potential zones. Potential aquifer zones were at shallow depth ranging from 10 to 25 m for the drilled borehole depth of 80-85 m in every village. Analysis of the result showed a good correlation between the acquired data and the lithologs.

Proposal for the Location of a Waste Management Center on a University Campus: A Case Study

“…According to the article by Choudhury et al [36] SEVs are considered for the determination of zones with aquifers directly related to soil and rock, to study the response of the layer and delineate potential zones, as was done in this investigation.…”

Aquifer characterization using geophysical and pumping test data in Kericho, Kenya

“…As a result, fifty vertical electrical sounding surveys were performed in Kericho utilizing the Schlumberger array configuration for groundwater investigation. Vertical electrical soundings produce smooth variation as a representation of subsurface changes with depth, which is inverted to obtain the subsurface representative model (Choudhury et al, 2017). The specific objectives of this study were to 1) determine hydraulic parameters from geoelectric and pumping test methods and 2) compare the significant differences in hydraulic parameters obtained from different methods.…”

Rapid Mapping of Hydrological Systems in Tanzania Using a Towed Transient Electromagnetic System

“…Near-surface geophysical methods augment traditional well siting techniques through noninvasive high-resolution imaging from the ground surface. Common-methods include vertical electrical sounding (VES) for one-dimensional (1D) modeling, electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) for two-dimensional (2D) imaging (Beauvais et al 1999;Coker 2012;Choudhury et al 2017;Alle et al 2018), magnetics (Sakala et al 2014), seismic methods (Van Overmeeren 1981), nuclear magnetic resonance (Vouillamoz et al 2014), and electromagnetics (Chongo et al 2015;Magaia et al 2018). These methods measure geophysical parameters that can be used to image and identify subsurface structures by exploiting contrasts in geophysical properties that can differentiate hydrological units-e.g., clays and sands corresponding to high-and low-electrically conductive materials (Palacky 1988).…”