Abstract

Groundwater is defined as that water that lies under ground and the world depends on its freshwater availability as the best quality source of water. The evaluation of the most significant Groundwater contributing factors for the delineation of groundwater potential zones in Nasarawa State was carried out using remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Eight thematic maps obtained from remote sensing data were used in this study. The Eight thematic maps from remote sensing include: Drainage density, Land use/ Land cover, lineament density, geological, rainfall, soil, elevation, slope maps derived from Landsat 8 and Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM)/Digital Elevation Model (DEM). The remote sensing thematic maps were integrated using the GIS based multi-criteria analysis techniques; the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Multi-Influencing Factor to produce the groundwater potential zone (GWPZ) maps. The research region was classified into five groundwater potential zones: very low, low, moderate, high, and very high, a classification was achieved by implementing the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) and Multi-Influence Factor (MIF) approaches. The findings indicated that the moderate potential zone encompasses the most extensive region, accounting for 75.3% (AHP) and 72.1% (MIF) of the total land area respectively. This is followed by the high potential zone, which covers 16.6% (AHP) and 20.7% (MIF), 28.5% of the area, and the very high potential zone, which covers 0.003% (AHP) and 0.002% (MIF) of the total land area. The area is comprised of 8.19% (AHP) and 7.18%(MIF) low potential zones and 0.004% (AHP) and 0.004% (MIF), very low potential zones respectively. This study will improve the identification of the very- high potential zones thereby reducing the costs and risks associated with borehole drilling. This study will provide an accurate, scientific evaluation of groundwater potential zones in Nasarawa State; this will be of benefit to a wide range of stakeholders for sustainable water resource management. The study suggest that further studies such as the impact of climate change on groundwater distribution should be done to ascertain the effect of climate change on groundwater distribution in the study area.