The use of remote sensing and ancillary data in GIS to assess groundwater potential of the Matayos - Funyula area, Busia district, Kenya

Abstract

Matayos - Funyula area is situated in Busia district of Western province in the Republic of Kenya. The previous groundwater explorations in the area were done using seismic methods which could not appropriately explore other promising areas for groundwater exploitation. The purpose of this study was to apply remote sensing techniques and GIS to acquire and analyse various themes of aquifer thickness, geology, land use, slope, lineament and drainage densities, and rainfall and integrating them by Index Overlay Method (lOM) to produce a groundwater potential map of the area between Matayos and Funyula in Busia district. The study showed that the areas with the highest groundwater potential were areas that had a low elevation and gentle slope, a high lineament density. The Recent (Alluvial) Sediments had the highest potential for groundwater. Satellite data has proven to be very useful and informative for surface and sub-surface study, as it gives preliminary and good background information on features such as lineaments and drainage density and other structures important to groundwater storage.