Reservoir characteristics of the Ambikapur aquifer in Central India

Despite India's tremendous progress on all fronts after independence in 1947, the fact remains that it is one of the poorest nation in the world in terms of per capita income and energy consumption which is considered to be the gauge of the economic situation of any country. In case of India, it is nearly one tenth of the developed nations. If economic condition of its people is to be raised, the country has to boost its agriculture production which is largely monsoon dependent and to exploit its conventional and unconventional energy sources at a very rapid growth rate. The Ambikapur in Central India is situated in a rural and backward area where crops are totally monsoon dependent. However, with the initiatives of the State Government, 5 boreholes in an area of about 5 square kilometers have been drilled up to a depth of 500 in and completed in the Gondwana Sandstones. The water quality and the discharge rates have been established to sustain the crops of the area which is the only livelihood of the local people, in case the monsoon fails. The hydraulic properties of the aquifer like Transmissivity (T) and the Coefficient of Storage (S) were determined following the graphic method of Jacob and Theis. The rate of discharge (Qw) of the pumped well was estimated at 11.0 x 10(-3) m(3)/s and the values of the other parameters like T at the well being 2.25 x 10(-3) m(2)/s and T and S at the piezometric head being 1.56 x 10(-2) m(2)/s and 5.5% respectively. The interference tests show that the reservoir is communicable. The measurements of bottom hole pressure indicate that it was always greater than the hydrostatic pressure, therefore, the wells will have a self flow. The residency period of the water in the reservoir comes out to be nearly 30 to 40 years. The reservoir characteristics indicate that the Ambikapur aquifer offers vast water resource worth exploiting.