ABSTRACT
The nature of weathered and fractured Precambrian-age crystalline basement aquifers was studied by workers in various parts of sub-Saharan Africa during the 1980s in response to the World Water Decade, and in the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands (Îles de la Manche) in the 1990s in response to increased water demand. Subsequently exploratory drilling in Jersey allows more detailed insight into the hydraulic properties of the weathered and fractured granite aquifer, sufficient to make comparison with development boreholes drilled into the Precambrian crystalline basement aquifer of sub-Saharan Africa, in this case using the Mutare area in eastern Zimbabwe as an example. Both cases offer similar groundwater occurrences in the upper weathered zone and lower fractured zones with regard to geology, geomorphology, water inflow zones, aquifer parameters, borehole yields, and groundwater quality.
