Hydrogeological activity of lineaments in Yaoundé Cameroon region using remote sensing and GIS techniques

Abstract

Though Yaoundé zone is characterized by abundant rains, access to safe drinking water becomes a difficult activity, because of climate change and pollution caused by human activities. Lineament zones on the earth’s surface are important elements in understanding the dynamics of the subsurface fluid flow. However, good exposures of these features are always lacking in some areas around Yaoundé, characterized by thick alteration. During field surveys these conditions, in many cases, hinder the proper characterization of such features. Therefore, an approach that identifies the regional lineaments on remote-sensing images (Landsat Thematic Mapper and shaded digital terrain models), with its large scale synoptic coverage, could be promising. This paper aims to the structural organization of lineament network in the crystalline basement of Yaoundé from remote sensing data and characterize them by statistical and geostatistical techniques. The results were validated on the basis of the geological maps, the hydrogeological maps and the outcrop data. Statistical analysis of the lineaments network shows a distribution along the N0–10, N20–30, N40–60 and N140–150. The correlation between the productivity of high yield wells and the closest lineament confirms that these lineaments are surface traces of regional discontinuities and act as main groundwater flow paths.