Groundwater Resource Management Using Geophysical Data in Borno State

This study examines the use of geophysical data in groundwater resource management decision-making in Borno State, North East Nigeria. Borno State faces extreme water scarcity challenges compounded by conflict displacement that has concentrated large populations in areas with limited infrastructure. Effective groundwater resource management in this context requires systematic use of available geophysical data to support borehole siting, aquifer productivity assessment, and water point sustainability monitoring. This study reviews existing geophysical datasets for Borno State including NGSA aeromagnetic archives, VES surveys conducted by UNICEF, USAID, and state government programmes, and time-domain EM surveys from Lake Chad authority programmes. A database of geophysical survey results is compiled and assessed for spatial coverage, data quality, and utilisation in groundwater management decisions. Key informant interviews with Borno State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency staff, international agency hydrogeologists, and academic geophysicists supplement the database analysis. Findings reveal that while substantial geophysical data exist for Borno State, they are distributed across multiple uncoordinated databases maintained by different organisations with incompatible formats and no cross-referencing. SRWASA does not have a dedicated geophysical specialist on staff, resulting in limited utilisation of available data in routine groundwater management decisions. Only 22 percent of sampled boreholes drilled since 2019 were preceded by geophysical survey. The study concludes that geophysical data integration into Borno State groundwater management requires institutional coordination improvement and recommends a unified state groundwater geophysics database platform.

Keywords: groundwater management, geophysical data, Borno State, water resources, institutional capacity.