Mapping Groundwater Availability and Adequacy in the Lower Zambezi River Basin
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Understanding spatio-temporal variability of water resources in eastern and southern Africa Proc. IAHS, 378, 37–42, 2018 https://doi.org/10.5194/piahs-378-37-2018 Open Access © Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Mapping groundwater availability and adequacy in the Lower Zambezi River basin Blanca Pérez-Lapeña1, Francisco Saimone1, and Dinis Juizo1,2 1Salomon Lda., Maputo, Mozambique 2Civil Engineering, Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique Correspondence: Francisco Saimone ([email protected]) Received: 10 November 2017 – Accepted: 11 December 2017 – Published: 29 May 2018 Abstract. Groundwater plays an important role as a source of water for various socio-economic uses and envi- ronmental requirements in the lower Zambezi basin in Mozambique. Hence it is important to know its availability and adequacy in space to inform decision making for sustainable water management practices. For a derivation of a Groundwater Availability map and a Groundwater Adequacy map we adapted the DRASTIC methodology in a GIS environment to determine how different parameters, such as precipitation, topography, soil drainage, land use and vegetation cover, aquifer characteristics and groundwater quality affect (i) groundwater recharge on a long-term sustainable basis, (ii) the short-term abstraction potential and (iii) the long-term adequacy of ground- water utilization for domestic use. Results showed that groundwater availability in the Zambezi basin varies mostly from medium to low, with highest potential along the perennial rivers and in the delta where it plays a crucial role in environmental preservation. The southern margin of the Zambezi River shows low groundwater availability and also presents low adequacy for domestic use due to poor groundwater quality. The results from this study will be used in determining the most promising future development pathways and select the most attractive strategic development plans of the Mozambican government for the Lower Zambezi basin. 1 Introduction It is within this context that it is necessary to evaluate the groundwater potential and the risks associated to its exploita- Groundwater is an essential source of water for various tion. socio-economic uses in the lower Zambezi Basin (World The presence, quantity, and quality of groundwater is re- Bank, 2009). It is also the only source of water supply to lated to geological, structural, climatic, morphological, sur- rural communities and the main source to two provincial cap- face drainage, chemical content, and land use/land cover fac- ital cities in the center of the country, i.e. Quelimane (aquifer tors and several models have emerged that seek to estab- of Licuári) and Tete/Moatize (aquifers of the Nhartanda val- lish the groundwater potential in a basin (Ganapuram et al., ley and those located on the banks of the Revúboè River). 2009). This study followed a similar approach as the weigh- Groundwater also plays a crucial role in the preservation of ing method originally developed for groundwater contami- valuable ecosystems in the basin. In semi-arid areas ground- nation risk analysis (DRASTIC, Aller et al., 1987). Based on water is an important resource for drought mitigation (Foster the work by SWECO (2004) and Plancenter (2008), an adap- and Tyson, 2013). In contrast, recent trends of intensifica- tation and extension of the method is presented to incorpo- tion of mining activities in the Zambezi valley bring several rate key parameters that affect groundwater recharge and its challenges for groundwater management, related to lowering quality, and thus, indicate groundwater availability and ade- of groundwater levels and the infiltration of acid and highly quacy. In the remaining of this paper we refer to groundwater mineralized waters (Pondja et al., 2017). as fresh water occurring in the saturated zone. Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences. 38 B. Pérez-Lapeña et al.: Mapping groundwater availability and adequacy in the Lower Zambezi River basin 2 Methodology Legend ± Country boundary 1 2 2.1 Study area Study area Sub-basin MALAWI Zambezi River The study area of this project covered the Zambezi river basin MOÇAMBIQUE in Mozambique. The basin is the richest region in Mozam- ZAMBIA 8 7 9 bique in natural resources (due to its high potential in the 14 3 5 10 13 agricultural, hydropower and mining sectors) as well as in 16 4 6 tourism while the Delta is of high environmental importance. 12 15 11 19 About four million people live within the boundaries of the 18 17 23 26 Zambezi River basin, with the highest concentrations in the 21 20 27 ZIMBABWE cities of Tete and Quelimane. Its climate varies from tropical 25 22 wet in the Delta area, to tropical dry savanna in areas close to 24 the Zambezi river and moderately humid, based on altitude, 100 50 0 100 km in the northern part of the basin. The general rainfall pattern Figure 1. Study area and sub-basins. shows a decrease from the coast to the most inland areas as a result of precipitation originating mostly from fronts and cyclones. adequacy for domestic use. Equation (1) was used to calcu- For the analyses, the basin was subdivided into 27 sub- late the groundwater availability index and Eq. (2) was used basins that were defined considering the main confluences to calculate the availability and adequacy index: and sections of the most important tributaries and imposing maximum sub-basin areas on the order of 10 000 km2 and Availability index D Dp · Dw C Pp · Pw C Rp · Rw (1) minimum areas in the order of 2500 km2 (Fig. 1). Availability and adequacy index D Dp · Dw C Pp · Pw C R · R C Q · Q : (2) 2.2 The extended approach p w p w The DRASTIC system is a widely used method to assess the The analysis was carried out in a GIS environment to pro- vulnerability of groundwater resources to pollution. It is an duce spatially varying indices as presented in the groundwa- overlay and index model designed to produce vulnerability ter Availability map and the map of Availability and Ade- scores by superimposition of environmental and geological quacy of groundwater use for the study area. thematic maps (Aller et al., 1987). In essence, the DRAS- TIC method is based on the hydraulic and hydrogeological 2.3 Hydrogeological categories characteristics of the aquifers. The DRASTIC method was 2.3.1 Depth to water table (D) adapted and extended in this study to evaluate the availabil- ity and viability of groundwater exploration. The following A database was constructed containing all identified spatial four categories and corresponding factors were considered in data on boreholes until November 2016 for the study area. our approach: Data on groundwater levels was obtained from 1028 bore- holes (depth in m). The relationship between water depth val- 1. the depth to the water table (D), affecting the potential ues and the basin hydrogeology was first analysed by fitting exploitation of groundwater; a regression model to the (log-transformed) water depth data, using aquifer type as the dummy variable. After the analysis, 2. the short-term abstraction potential (P ), governed by we obtained a non-significant overall fit (at α D 0.05). The the aquifer material (A) and associated productivi- depth to water table map was determined spatially by inter- ties (C); polating the water depth values using the Inverse Distance 3. the magnitude of groundwater recharge (R) on a long- Weighing algorithm, IDW. In this study, rates were adopted term basis, governed by the mean annual precipita- from Aller et al. (1987) and are presented in Table 1 and ap- tion (MAP), slope (T ), soil infiltration (S), and land use plied to create the map in Fig. 2a. and land cover (LU/LC); 2.3.2 Short-term abstraction potential (P ) 4. groundwater quality (Q), affecting the adequacy of groundwater for domestic water supply. The data contained in the Hydrogeological Map of Mozam- bique at scale of 1 : 1 000 000 was used to assess the short- Values in each factor were first divided into ranges. Each term abstraction potential in the study area. The hydroge- range was assigned a rate p on a scale 1 to 10 and then ological map contains information of (i) aquifer types and each category was assigned a weight w to quantify its rela- (ii) “yield classes” associated with each aquifer type. Types tive importance in determining groundwater availability and of aquifers, as described in the Hydrogeological map, are: Proc. IAHS, 378, 37–42, 2018 proc-iahs.net/378/37/2018/ B. Pérez-Lapeña et al.: Mapping groundwater availability and adequacy in the Lower Zambezi River basin 39 Table 1. Ratings for factors/categories. Factor Rate Factor Rate Factor Rate Depth to water (m) Slope (%) Land use and land cover 0–1.5 10 0–2 10 Irrigation cultivation 9 1.5–4.5 9 2–4 9 Raifed cultivation 8 4.5–9.1 7 4–7 8 Decidous shrubs; decidous 7 9.1–15.2 5 7–12 5 grassland (2–5 m high); rice 15.2–22.8 3 12–18 3 cultivation, natural water bodies 22.9–30.5 2 > 18 1 Everygreen shrubland; Everygreen 6 > 30.5 1 grassland (2–5 m high) Short-term abstraction potential EC Shrub savanna 5 Aquifer type A (> 50 m3 h−1) 10 0–700 10 Miombo open; Mopane open; 4 Aquifer type B (> 50 m3 h−1); type A (10–50 m3 h−1) 8 700–1500 8 Decidous forest; Open shrub on temporarily flooded land; Shifting vegetation; Aquifer type A (3–10 m3 h−1), type B (10–50 m3 h−1) 6 1500–7500 3 Herbaceous vegetation temporarily flooded; Evergreen forest; Tree crops; Tree savanna; Aquifer type C