Investigation of Groundwater Flow Direction in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract

The lack of reliable municipal water supply in the city of Port Harcourt has led to indiscriminate drilling of boreholes by the residents however, the direction of groundwater flow within the entire city has not been established. Hence, the research investigated the flow direction of groundwater in the study area in order to understand the best location for siting septic tanks and dumpsites with respect to the position of the existing or proposed borehole. This was achieved by determining the hydraulic heads (Hh) of twenty boreholes evenly distributed within the city by subtracting the static water level (SWL) from the corresponding earth surface elevation (E) with the use of a GPS and dipmeter. Results revealed that the hydraulic heads ranged from 0.14 – 23.16m while the surface elevation and static water level lies between 1.93 – 39.33m and 1.79 – 17.27m respectively. The contour map of the hydraulic heads indicated that the groundwater flows towards the southern and south-western directions hence, the residents were advised to take into cognizance when sitting dumpsites, landfills, and septic tanks with respect to proposed or existing boreholes.

Keywords

• contour map
• groundwater
• hydraulic head
• port harcourt