Geomorphological Control on Groundwater Occurrence Within the Basement Terrain of Keffi Area, North-Central Nigeria

Abstract

This research is focused on extracting and evaluating geomorphological features such as slope, elevation, drainage and wetness from remotely sensed data using principal component analysis (PCA). These features are variables and have significantly influenced the geomorphological control on groundwater occurrence. The software ENVI 5.0 was used to extract wetness information by performing a tasselled cap transformation and extraction of slope data, GLOBAL MAPPER 15 was used to extract information on drainage and ARCMAP 10.3 performed the drainage density using the kernel density algorithm (KDA). From the PCA performed, the most suitable principal component was PC3. It was then negated in order to achieve the desired result because it contains the information on the variable that influences the geomorphological control on groundwater. A Multi-fractal analysis (MFA) was performed to identify the threshold or area with high influence of geomorphological factors on groundwater distribution. From the threshold, three classes were identified and thus, areas with low, moderate and high potentials have been delineated corresponding to 199.7834, 501.6503 and 67.0763 km² respectively. It can thus be concluded that other geological, hydrogeological and hydrological factors may have a stronger control on the occurrence and distribution of groundwater within Keffi and its environs than the geomorphology.