page_title: Groundwater in Nigeria
section_title: Geology
hierarchical_section_title: Groundwater in Nigeria / Groundwater Environments / Geology
caption_attribution_description: This file was uploaded as part of a Wikimedia UK partnership with the British Geological Survey. For more information please contact scotland@wikimedia.org.uk This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing. Hydrogeology of Nigeria. This map was developed for the Africa Groundwater Atlas, 2019. It is is based on a 1:5 million scale map of geology, oil and gas fields and geologic provinces of Africa (Persits et al., 2002), which in turn was based on a map published in 1964 by UNESCO (Furon and Lombard 1964).
context_page_description: Groundwater in Nigeria is widely used for domestic, agricultural, and industrial supplies. The Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation estimate that in 2018 60% of the total population were dependent on groundwater point sources for their main drinking water source: 73% in rural areas and 45% in urban areas. The cities of Calabar and Port Harcourt are totally dependent on groundwater for their water supply.
  In 2013, there were around 65,000 boreholes in Nigeria extracting an estimated 6,340,000 m³/day. The majority of these were equipped with hand pumps and used for water supply in rural areas and small towns.
  Estimates of total renewable groundwater resources in Nigeria are variable. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that Nigeria has 87,000 Million m³/year of renewable groundwater resources. Japan International Cooperation Agency estimate that total annual groundwater recharge is 155,800 Million m³/year. Recharge is variable across the country and largely controlled by climate: recharge is lower in the north of the country due to higher evapotranspiration and lower rainfall.
context_section_description: The geology of Nigeria includes large areas where Precambrian basement rocks are present at the ground surface, and other large areas where the basement rocks are overlain by younger sedimentary rocks. In the north west, these sedimentary rocks largely consist of Tertiary and Cretaceous rocks of the Sokoto Basin (the south eastern part of the Iullemmeden Basin), which are made up of varying amounts of sandstone and clay, with lesser amounts of limestone. In the north east, Tertiary and Quaternary rocks of the Chad Basin comprise sandstone, siltstone and shale. In the centre of Nigeria, along the course of the Benue and Niger rivers, are Tertiary and Cretaceous sedimentary rocks of the Benue and Nupe Basins. The Benue Basin consists of continental sandstones overlain by marine and estuarine shales and limestones, while the Nupe Basin largely contains continental sandstones, siltstones, claystones and conglomerates.
  Along the coast, within the Niger Delta Basin, there are significant unconsolidated sediments of Tertiary to Quaternary age, comprising coarse to medium grained unconsolidated sands and gravels with thin peats, silts, clays and shales.
caption: Hydrogeology of Nigeria at 1:5 Million Scale
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