Groundwater Potential Analysis of Adamawa State Northeastern Nigeria Using Geospatial and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Techniques

<jats:p>Groundwater remains one of the most dependable sources of freshwater for domestic, agricultural, and industrial purposes, particularly in regions experiencing increasing population growth and seasonal variability in surface water availability. This study assessed the groundwater potential of Adamawa state using geospatial and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis techniques. Rainfall data was obtained from Nigerian Meteorological Agency, satellite images and Digital Elevation Model was acquired from the United States Geological Survey. Thematic maps were produced for factors such as geology, rainfall, drainage density, soil, lineament density, slope, and land use/land cover. The weighted overlay analysis technique was employed to generate the groundwater potential map which was validated with existing borehole yields. Pairwise comparison of the groundwater influencing factors revealed that geology had the highest degree of influence on groundwater occurrence with a weighted level of significance of 24.6%, followed by rainfall (20.8%) and drainage density (17.0%). Soil, lineament density, slope, and land use/land cover contributed 13.7%, 11.2%, 8.4%, and 4.4% respectively. The generated groundwater potential map was reclassified into five zones: very low, low, moderate, high, and very high groundwater potential zones. The results showed that areas of very high groundwater potential are predominantly concentrated within the central region and parts of the southern region of the state with very low groundwater potential zones occupied 1,058.84 km² (2.96%), low potential zones covered 13,332.71 km² (37.32%), moderate potential zones occupied 8,153.76 km² (22.83%), high potential zones covered 11,364.66 km² (31.82%), while very high potential zones accounted for 1,811 km² (5.07%) of the total area</jats:p>