Comparative Assessment of Nigeriasat-X and Landsat ETM+ Satellite Data in Groundwater Potential Modelling using a part of FCT as Case Study

Groundwater is an important natural resource that supports plants and animal lives. An important factor responsible for its scarcity in developing countries is increasing urbanisation resulting from rapid growth in population and the associated anthropogenic activities. Many studies have used Landsat data for groundwater potential modelling. Information on the usability of NigeriaSat-X data for the same application is limited. The study assessed the utility of NigeriaSat-X and Landsat ETM+ satellite imageries for groundwater potential modelling. The two satellite data, SRTM DEM and other ancillary data were used to generate thematic maps (geomorphological, geological, slope, drainage density, lineament density, NDVI, Soil, and Land cover map). individual themes and their corresponding categories were assigned a knowledge-based ranking from 1 to 5 according to the relative contribution of each of these maps for inferring groundwater potential. GIS-based Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to integrate the thematic maps to produce a composite groundwater potential map for NigeriaSat-X and Landsat ETM+. The groundwater potential zones derived were classified ranging from excellent to very poor potential. The modelled groundwater potential zones were validated with field checks and static water level data. Results show that lineament density and geomorphological pattern are the ultimate contributing factors to the occurrence and movement of groundwater in the study area. Areas underlain by migmatite, migmatite gneiss and granitic rocks have moderate groundwater potential, while quartzite and quartz-schist areas exhibit higher potentiality. The study shows that there is no significant difference in the performance of NigeriaSat-X and Landsat ETM+ satellite data for modelling groundwater potential.