Groundwater in Nigeria - a millennium experience distribution, practice, problems and solutions

Lack of appropriate hydrogeological base maps, poor knowledge of the geology of the Nigerian terrain, lack of infrastructural facilities and absence of a working legislature beset the practice of hydrogeology causing problems in exploration, exploitation, operation, control and management of the abundant groundwater resources of Nigeria. This study shows that Nigeria has about 224 trillion l/year of surface water and about 50 million trillion l/year of groundwater for a population of about 128 million. Domestic consumption need was about 6.0 billion l/year in 2001, indicating that there is an abundant water resource potential. A hydrostratigraphic basin delineation is attempted with ten hydrogeological basins as hydrogeological units, which bring to light the intrinsic causes and solutions to the problems of borehole failures, dam collapses, brine-salt water intrusions, and insufficient water delivery to millions of Nigerians.