APPLICATION OF GROUNDWATER DATA

LOGGERS TO MONITOR DYNAMIC AND STATIC

WATER LEVELS IN A TEST PUMPING WELL
CASE STUDY: NAKOROS AREA, TURKANA
COUNTY KENYA.
Presented
By
Bernard Omwenga-Geologist
Bernard_mageto@yahoo.com/bomwenga@kengen.co.ke

11/19/2015

GEOEACE CONFERENCE 2015

Outline
Introduction
Materials and methods
Results and interpretation
Discussion
Conclusion and recommendations

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INTRODUCTION
Study area
Nakoros well located in Kakuma area region in Turkana County,
Kenya.
Study area lies in the northern terminus of the eastern arm of the
African Rift system.
Its aquifer was struck along fractured basalt and weathered trachyte.
Boreholes TD= 70m, Q= 1.2 m3/hr.
Static and dynamic water levels recorded using both the water level deeper
and groundwater data logger diver.

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GEOACE CONFERENCE 2015

Introduction..cont
The data loggers
were used in
constant rate
pumping.
Other well testing
stages such as stepdrawdown and
recovery were done
manually using
electronic sounder.
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Definition of terms
Static water level -level of water in a well under normal,
undisturbed, no-pumping conditions.
Dynamic water level -level of water drawn from a
pumped well.
Data loggers - used to automatically measure the water
levels in monitoring wells and boreholes.
Test pumping (well test) - field experiment for evaluating
amount of water that can be pumped from a water well.

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GEOACE CONFERENCE 2015

Materials and equipments used

Electronic deeper to measure real static water level.
2 sets of data logger divers; baro diver and cera diver.
Corrosion free aluminum cable (30m long).
USB cable data downloader.
A laptop computer for data downloading.
Diver office 2012.1 software for data modelling.

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GEOACE CONFERENCE 2015

Equipments used (Pictorial

illustration)
Baro diver-measure
barometric pressure of
water
Cera diver-measure
barometric pressure of
water

Electronic sounder

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Equipments used..cont

Computer Laptop

USB down
loader

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Schematic representation of data logger in a well

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RESULTS AND INTERPRETATION

Deriving the Water level formula
Obtain the water column given by:
i.). WC=k(Pcera-Pbaro)/g
Where WC=Water Column=Water Head, PCera=Cera diver Pressure ,
Pbaro=Baro Diver Pressure ,g=Density of Water*Acceleration due to
gravity= 9810 and K=Constant=9806.65
Calculate the SWL as follows:
ii.). WL=CL (WC+h1).
Where:
WL= water Level (both SWL and DWL), CL=Cable Length h1=Length of
casing above ground level.
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Results and interpretation..cont

Measured swl by electronic sounder-20m.
Static Water level measured by groundwater data
logger is 21m. The average dynamic level in the first
10 minutes is 21.7m.
The static water level deeper is 12.27m. The
average dynamic level by electronic sounder for the
first 10 mins is 24.7m.
The pumping water level data logger is 35.08m
compared to 36.54m for electronic sounder.
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Results and interpretation_Water level data

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Discussion..cont
Graphical representation of well data

Dynamic Water Level (m)

40
35
30
25
20 water level (m)
dynamic
15
10
5
0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

elapsed time (minutes)

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Discussion
Water level fluctuation occurs at different stages of
pumping. High pressure differences are noted at the
third hour.
Similarity occurs between data collected by the
electronic deeper sounder.
Negative static water level values were obtained
between 0-30 mins, implying that the cera diver was
placed above water level.

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Conclusion and recommendations

Slight variation noted between data collected by data loggers and
electronic sounder.
Data collected by the divers tend to be more accurate compared to
those collected by electronic sounder. However variation occurred
at stages of pumping.
It is applicable to monitor events of poor workmanship by test
pumping crew- they enables us to detect instances where data has
been manipulated by the test pumping personnel.
It is advisable that the data loggers be adopted in test pumping
measuring exercise because they are cheap, relatively accurate
compared to ordinary electronic sounders. They are also Ideal for
long-term monitoring in saline environments
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Thank you!

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