GEOPHYSICAL EVALUATION OF GROUNDWATER POTENTIAL IN PARTS OF IKWERRE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA.

Abstract

The pressure on water supplies in the study area is very high due to increase in population as a result of the presence of oil companies, construction and manufacturing companies. There is the need to identify locations (areas) with very high groundwater resource potentials to meet their demand of groundwater which eventually is the only source of drinking water. Many people get potable drinking water from groundwater by drilling wells down into the zone of saturation. The site or position of the water table is exposed or shown by the height of which water is seen in a well of shallow nature, open along its length and penetrating the surface deposits merely adequately deep enough to run into standing water in the base (Freeze and  Cherry 1979). 

To serve as an aquifer, a rock unit must be both porous and permeable. This means that it must have a significant volume of void space (porosity) and large enough (permeability). Sandstone whose void between grains are not filled with cement or clay are very good aquifers. Other water bearing formations are sands and gravels, marine sands and limestones, fractured plutonic and metamorphic rocks. These determined the groundwater resource potential of an area. Although shales have high porosity, the grains in them are so small for the passage of water molecules (Hay  and Mcalester, 1975).