I have always wondered why everyone wants to own a borehole. Recently, I learned that Nigeria is seriously prone to earthquakes because of the number of boreholes being bored on a daily basis. Can some one please explain if there is any adverse effect of borehole construction on environment (mostly on ground water)? Is there any study done particularly for the The Nigerian terrain ? Is this true that there is danger of earthquake in areas hugely drilled by bore holes? Does every country have different regulations for bore hole drilling?

Bore holes are dug for Installation of Tube wells to extract water from Ground water aquifers in geographies where surface water sources are absent --No Pond, Canal or River. Aquifers are sub soils which keep water that percolates from surface of land and is retained by Clayey compacted layers or rocky sub strata. It is perfectly OK to dig bore holes and extract water if it is of good quality. However, extraction should be not much more than whatever water can get back into aquifer, otherwise, depth of ground water table shall go deeper and all bore well owners shall have to deepen their boreholes at extra costs. If any single individual digs a deeper bore and pumps out more water using more powerful pump, the water table will fall and some shallow bore holes shall go dry. In India, the geographies where ground water table has gone too deep, any further exploitation is stopped and no more boreholes are allowed. In other areas, Rainwater harvesting is encouraged so that aquifers can get water which tube wells shall extract round the year. Earth quakes have nothing to do with BORE HOLES. Only in the fault zones (where rocky substrata has deep fracture, very deep wells such as Shale gas wells or Crude oil extraction wells that can go 1000 to 1500 m deep, can be risky if molten lava or volcanoes are present in near vicinity.... Plains around Nile River are not risky for tube wells..

Borehole construction and its effect on the environment

Published on June 30, 2016 10:36 by Victoria Obe, Founder, The Waterpreneur NG

I have always wondered why everyone wants to own a borehole. Recently, I learned that Nigeria is seriously prone to earthquakes because of the number of boreholes being bored on a daily basis.

Can some one please explain if there is any adverse effect of borehole construction on environment (mostly on ground water)? Is there any study done particularly for the The Nigerian terrain ?
Is this true that there is danger of earthquake in areas hugely drilled by bore holes?
Does every country have different regulations for bore hole drilling?

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Water
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Borehole Drilling
Environment
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Community Supply
Infrastructure