Assessing the Potential and Identifying Suitable Sites for Rainwater Harvesting in Abuja, Nigeria
Ohiambe Eseoghene1, Patrick G Home2, Coker Wale3, Joseph Sang4
1Ohiambe Eseoghene, Department of Civil Engineering, Pan African University Institute for Basic Science Technology and Innovation (PAUSTI) hosted by Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Juja, Kenya.
2Prof Patrick. G Home, Department of Civil Engineering, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Nairobi, Kenya.
3Prof. Coker Wale, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Ibadan (UI), Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria.
4Dr. Joseph Sang, Department of Civil Engineering, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Nairobi, Kenya.
Manuscript received on March 18, 2018. | Revised Manuscript received on March 28, 2018. | Manuscript published on April 15, 2018. | PP: 14-24 | Volume-5, Issue-4, April 2018. | Retrieval Number: D1066045418
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© The Authors. Published By: Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: Water scarcity is vastly becoming a serious Environmental problem in the world and in Nigeria, it is increasingly severe and very frequent. In Abuja, water scarcity is one of the major environmental problems. Nigeria is most likely one of the 25 African countries that will experience water scarcity or stress by 2025 as predicted by FAO. The problem of water scarcity in Abuja is unique because Abuja was not regarded as an ASAL region some years in the past, but its population has increased immensely within a short period. The rate of water consumption, urbanization and industrialization has exceeded the rate at which the available water supplies are replenished. This problem of water scarcity can be mitigated with detailed study of the area and the water resources available. Rainwater harvesting is one of the means with which water scarcity can be stopped or prevented. Though rainwater harvesting has been in existence for over 4000 years, its full potential to meet the water needs of millions of people has never been reached. Assessing and mapping Rainwater harvesting potential in Abuja would make it easier to estimate the total quantity of harvestable rainwater. In this study, the rainwater harvesting potential of Abuja was assessed using the Geographical Information System (GIS) integrated with Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). Some of the factors considered during this analysis are annual rainfall, landuse/landcover, population, slope and soil type/runoff coefficient. The spatial multi-criteria analysis was used to classify and rank the suitable locations for rainwater harvesting while the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method was used to compute the priority weight of each criterion. Using AHP, the percentages derived from the factors were Rainfall 28%, Slope 24.7%, Soil 19.9%, Land Use 17.1% and population 10.3%. At the end of the study, maps of different rainwater harvesting techniques were generated showing their individual potential in the study area. The result showed that Abuja has a very high potential for rainwater harvesting as the amount of rainwater harvestable can be used to eradicate water scarcity in the state.
Keywords: Rainwater Harvesting Potential, Water Scarcity, Geographical information system, Analytical Hierarchy Process, Abuja.