Hydrogeochemical Characterization of Groundwater from Fissured Aquifers in the Angovia Mine Operating Permit Area (Central-West Côte d’Ivoire)

The main objective of this study is to determine the hydrogeochemical specificities of the groundwater of the Angovia mine operating permit, located in the Yaouré mountains in the center-west of Côte d’Ivoire. To do so, descriptive and multivariate statistical analysis methods with the SOM (Self Organizing Maps) algorithm were applied to the physicochemical parameters of 17 boreholes using the calcite (ISC) and dolomite (ISD) saturation indices. The results obtained have shown that the groundwater in the Angovia mine operating permit area has an average temperature of 27.52°C (long rainy season) and 27.87&degC (long dry season) and has an average pH of 7.09 ± 0.35 during the main rainy season and 7.32 ± 0.35 during the main dry season. They are mineralized with an average electrical conductivity of 505.98 ± 302.85 μS/cm during the long rainy season and with 450.33 ± 233.74 μS/cm as average during the long dry season. The main phenomena at the origin of groundwater mineralization are water residence time, oxidation-reduction and surface inflow. The study of the relative age of the water shows that the groundwater in the Angovia mine operating permit area is mainly undersaturated with respect to calcite and dolomite. They are therefore very old in the aquifer with a slow circulation speed during the long rainy season and the long dry season.

Multi-Criteria Analysis Using Remote Sensing and GIS: Insight into Groundwater Potential of the Fissured Aquifers in the Liptako Socle (Southwestern Niger)

In the basement of southwestern Niger, weathering and fractured zones concentrate most of the groundwater. This study focuses on fractured media and aims to identify areas of productivity in this aquifer to improve the region’s water coverage. The cartographic approach developed made it possible to establish synthetic maps based on multi-criteria analysis. The hydrogeological parameters selected include fracturing data, drainage system, slope and piezometric level as well as shallow and deep lithology. The choice of these criteria is based on their physical meaning but also on the availability of data. The integration of all the criteria in a GIS allowed to generate maps of recharge and potential productivity of fractured aquifers in the area. The validation of these thematic maps with independent data confirms their utility as reference standards for accessibility for future resource exploitation. Like any spatialization tool, potential recharge maps will provide valuable information about areas where infiltration is more important, and help control and manage risk zoning. The upward evacuation effect is even more prominent along the lineaments, faults or fractures: thus, to avoid possible pollution and to locate the future hydraulic structures, the analysis of the potential recharge zones remains necessary. The potential productivity index map, in addition to the very punctual sites identified by the fracturing study, made it possible to define areas of high potential productivity.

Development of a Model for Assessing Vulnerability to Pollution of Groundwater in Fissured Aquifers: The Case of the Ehania Watershed (South-Eastern Côte d’Ivoire)

The protection of aquifers is a major concern for the authorities, especially in areas where there are large agro-industrial exploitations. The objective of this study is to define a new method of aquifer protection based on the characteristics of the structures of aquifers. The intrinsic vulnerability mapping method, PaPRI was used. It is a variant of the PaPRIKa method applied in karstic environment which has been adapted for its application in basement environment. This method uses three factors, including aquifer protection (P), using the soil cover, the unsaturated zone and the thickness of the alteration layer, (R) for the rock type and (I) for infiltration which including slope and drainage density. PAPRI is a method based on the weighting of different factors. The results obtained show 4 classes that evolve from low vulnerability classes (5% of the study area) to high and very high vulnerability classes (58%) and average vulnerability classes (37%). The classes of high and very high vulnerability, which indicate the zones that are very exposed to pollution, are more present in the central-northern part of the study area, with a few appearances towards the south. These zones could be related to topography due to the often very high slopes observed in the area. One of the advantages of this new method lies in the characterization of the alterations that strongly influence the migration of pollutants towards the water tables according to their nature and their thickness.

Use of a Multiple Regression Model in the Estimation of Water Borehole Flows in the Middle of Cracked Basement in Côte d’Ivoire

The objective of this study was to propose a mathematical regression model to estimate the exploitation flow rate of a water borehole from geophysical parameters in the midst of a fissured basement in the central-eastern part of C?te d’Ivoire. The data of the study are both hydrogeological and geophysical parameters from one hundred and eleven (111) data sheets of (111) water and geophysical boreholes. Two methods were used. The Normal Principal Component Analysis (NPCA) method applied to the data made it possible to select the explanatory variables (geophysical parameters) for borehole productivity. The multiple linear regression method subsequently made it possible to propose a mathematical model capable of estimating the exploitation rate from the geophysical parameters. The results indicate a very strong correlation (0.87) between longitudinal conductivity and flow rate, with flow rate and apparent resistivity negatively correlated. The multiple linear regression method highlighted two relevant explanatory variables, longitudinal conductivity and apparent resistivity. These two geophysical parameters contributed to a mathematical model in the form Q = C1X1 + C2X2 + ... + CnXn + C0. the real model obtained in this work is Q = 0.82Cl - 0.12Rho.app + 2.5. The resulting model is efficient with a correlation of 86% in calibration and 95% in validation. A bias of 0.37 in calibration and 0.82 in validation is observed. Finally, the square root mean square error (RMSE) is 3.10 to 3.38 respectively in calibration and validation.

Mapping of Groundwater Potential by Multicriteria Analysis: Case of the Departments of Yamoussoukro and Toumodi (Central Cote d’Ivoire)

This study focuses on the problem of access to drinking water in the fractured areas of the departments of Yamoussoukro and Toumodi. The problem has become more acute since most of the boreholes drilled have failed. The main objective of this study is to map the areas that are favorable for the installation of large boreholes in the departments of Yamoussoukro and Toumodi in order to increase the population’s drinking water needs. Hydroclimatic and cartographic data, technical surveys of boreholes and satellite images were used to conduct this study. The AHP multi-criteria analysis method was adopted. It consists in aggregating the criteria by weighting and allowed to combine these different data to generate maps of groundwater availability, accessibility and exploitability indicators. These different indicators were then considered as criteria and combined using the full aggregation technique to produce the water potential map. These results show that the study area has significant groundwater reserves with nearly 63% of these areas being favorable for the establishment of large flow boreholes. This study provides some answers to the question of groundwater resources and could be used as a decision support tool in the execution of groundwater collection works in the departments of Yamoussoukro and Toumodi in order to avoid the high percentage of drilling failures encountered in past projects.