Browsing by Author "Antwi, N.D."

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    Application Of The Rainfall Infiltration Breakthrough (Rib) Model For Groundwater Recharge Estimation In The Birim North District Of Eastern Region, Ghana
    (University Of Ghana, 2022-07) Antwi, N.D.
    Evaluation of Groundwater recharge from rainfall is essential for sustainable water resources management, particularly in arid and semi-arid environments. The Birim North District, where majority of the population relies on groundwater due to pollution of surface water sources, has already experienced a drop in groundwater levels attending to the cumulative impacts of human activities and climate change. This project applies the Rainfall Infiltration Breakthrough (RIB) methodology to estimate groundwater recharge in the shallow unconfined, saprolite aquifer system in the Birimian Province in Southwestern Ghana. The Water level fluctuation (WTF) approach was used to estimate groundwater recharge in order to check, augment, and confirm the Rainfall Infiltration Breakthrough (RIB) recharge estimates by comparing such groundwater recharge estimates. The specific yield values acquired from the previous studies were compared to those acquired using the linear regression model as a quality assurance measure. The validity of the analysis, i.e., the association between rainfall and groundwater level, was established as a result of this. The line drawn in the regression model for determining the specific yield corresponded to 0.06, which was close to the value (0.05) obtained from literature. The RIB model estimated local recharge at 2.9 % to 21.4% of mean annual precipitation (MAP). The WTF approach estimated recharge to be between 3.2 % to 22.6 %. The prediction showed that decreased rainfall had no effect on groundwater levels during the simulation period in the climate scenario analysis. However, the ratio of recharge rate to precipitation did not alter considerably; it was somewhat greater than the baseline. Correlation examination of rainfall and observed water level fluctuation (WTF) data at the monthly scale, along with recharge estimates derived from other approaches, indicated that the RIB results based on monthly data were plausible and could thus be utilized as recharge estimates. These findings suggested that using these methods to estimate groundwater recharge provides opportunities for assessing temporal variations in groundwater recharge and thus facilitates groundwater resources management. The method can estimate groundwater recharge in similar regions with adequately long time series of rainfall and groundwater levels. The RIB model is particularly suitable for shallow unconfined aquifers with minimal transmissivity; nonetheless, the RIB model's utility for application in various climatic locations and hydrogeological circumstances needs to be further investigated. These strategies could be tested in the future in catchments that have similar conditions of physiographic and hydrogeologic systems to the current research region.