AQUIFER CHARACTERISTICS IN UYO METROPOLIS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
As long as the surface of the earth exists, one of the most valuable resources is the water beneath the earth’s surface. Groundwater is stored in the open space and fractures within geologic material such as soil, sand and rock that beneath the land surface. Aquifer are the geologic layers that are filled with water and that can transmit enough water to supply a well under normal hydraulic gradients.
The type of geological formation that can store this water at a particular environment and it distribution worldwide. Surface, ground water has relationships with the geological formation (aquifer) that stores and transmit this water at any given time and quantity.
Groundwater in gravel, silt and sand aquifers is found in pore spaces between the particles, whereas groundwater in consolidated aquifer is found in fractures within the rock.
The amount of water a given type of rock can hold depends on the rock’s porosity, which is the volume of pore space between the grains of the sediments or fracture in the rock. The origin of Groundwater was the subject of speculation until the 17th century when Perrault (1608 – 1680) and Mariotte (1620 – 1684), through careful measurement and analysis, demonstrated independently that the source of stream flow and groundwater was precipitation from the atmosphere. Groundwater is precious and the most widely distributed resources of the earth and unlike any other mineral resources. It get its annual replenishment from the meteoric precipitation. The relationship between surface, groundwater and the geological formation is shown below in fig. 1.1.
Fig. 1: Sketch Showing Relationship between surface and groundwater
Groundwater includes all the water found beneath earth surface and it is stored in the open spaces and fracture within the geological materials such as soil, sand and rocks that occur beneath the earth’s surface (Batran and Jones, 1996). It is the body of water derived primarily from percolation and contained in permeable rock formation known as aquifer.
For water to move through rocks, the pore spaces must be connected. Groundwater flows very slowly within the aquifer and the speed of groundwater movement depends on the size of the spaces within the soil or rock, how well these space are connected and the slope (or pressure gradaint) of the water table.
Due to different properties of geologic materials (Aquifer) most of the void spaces in the rock below the water table are filled with water which means that rock have different porosity and permeability characteristics and water do not move around the same way in all rock of geologic formation. From this study, the characteristics of Aquifer will be examined and analyzed properly within Uyo metropolis.
This study aims at the following:
The outcome of this work serves as a reference for future research on the characteristics of aquifers in Uyo Metropolis. Researchers, individuals, government and non-governmental organisations will be aware of the areas of potentially productive well.
This study will be limited to the following aspect.
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