What is a water well?

A water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring,
or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by
a pump, or using containers, such as buckets, that are raised mechanically or by hand. Wells
were first constructed at least eight thousand years ago and historically vary in construction
from a simple scoop in the sediment of a dry watercourse to the stepwells of India,
the qanats of Iran, and the shadoofs and sakiehs of India. Placing a lining in the well shaft
helps create stability and linings of wood or wickerwork date back at least as far as the Iron
Age.

Wells have been traditionally sunk by hand digging as is the case in rural developing areas.
These wells are inexpensive and low-tech as they use mostly manual labour and the
structure can be lined with brick or stone as the excavation proceeds. A more modern
method called caissoning uses pre-cast reinforced concrete well rings that are lowered into
the hole. Driven wells can be created in unconsolidated material with a well hole structure,
which consists of a hardened drive point and a screen of perforated pipe, after which a
pump is installed to collect the water. Deeper wells can be excavated by hand drilling
methods or machine drilling, using a bit in a borehole. Drilled wells are usually cased with a
factory-made pipe composed of steel or plastic. Drilled wells can access water at much
greater depths than dug wells.

Two broad classes of well are shallow or unconfined wells completed within the uppermost
saturated aquifer at that location, and deep or confined wells, sunk through an
impermeable stratum into an aquifer beneath. A collector well can be constructed adjacent
to a freshwater lake or stream with water percolating through the intervening material. The
site of a well can be selected by a hydrogeologist, or groundwater surveyor. Water may be
pumped or hand drawn. Impurities from the surface can easily reach shallow sources and
contamination of the supply by pathogens or chemical contaminants needs to be avoided.
Well water typically contains more minerals in solution than surface water and may require
treatment before being potable. Soil salination can occur as the water table falls and the
surrounding soil begins to dry out. Another environmental problem is the potential
for methane to seep into the water.
Types of water well

DUG WELLS

Hand-dug wells are excavations with diameters large enough to accommodate one or more
people with shovels digging down to below the water table. The excavation is braced
horizontally to avoid landslide or erosion endangering the people digging. They can be lined
with laid stones or brick; extending this lining upwards above the ground surface to form a
wall around the well serves to reduce both contamination and injuries by falling into the
well. A more modern method called caissoning uses reinforced concrete or plain concrete
pre-cast well rings that are lowered into the hole. A well-digging team digs under a cutting
ring and the well column slowly sinks into the aquifer, whilst protecting the team from
collapse of the well bore.

DRIVEN WELLS
A driven well is a well dug vertically by driving in piping directly. It is a capture engineered
structure that consists of a perforated pipe with a pointed end, which is driven by a variety
of techniques as far as the water table, in soft of medium-hard ground. Other names are
instantaneous well or sand-point well.

There are different driving techniques :

Percussion driving - To drive the pipe into the ground, the technique involves using a
very heavy tool (the bit) fixed to a rope or cable. The bit is raised and released in
succession to let the pipe fall to the end where there is a conical end piece to break
up the ground.
The height and frequency of the drop varies according to the hardness of the
ground. The ground must also be free of stones or rocks.
If the tube looks like it might collapse, a preliminary well casing must be inserted
and removed when the final pipe is installed.
This process can be used to dig small-diameter wells (25 to 100 mm) to depths of
less than 15 m or 20 m depending on the hardness of the ground.

Water injection driving - The process involves injecting water under pressure inside a
pipe. A motor-driven pump is used to obtain sufficient pressure. The water wells up
at the bottom of the hole outside the pipe walls and rises to the surface of the
ground as mud containing the ground cuttings. The pipe is lowered and successive
sections of the pipe can be driven in until the desired depth is reached.
This process is used to dig wells up to around 30 to 40 m deep.
 Undercutting driving - This process is also known as the Benoto process.
Undercutting involves constructing a circular engineered structure (large pipe) on
the ground, then digging inside it to lower it gradually.
The large-diameter pipe penetrates the ground under its own weight in this type of
driven well. The earth is dug out from inside either manually or with a mechanised
bucket which empties the inside of the pipe. The weight of the pipe pushes it
downwards as the digging progresses.
This process is used to dig wells of large diameter (several metres) to a depth of 15
to 20 metres.

DRILLED WELLS

A large number of modern wells are drilled, meaning that they are dug by
percussion of a tool in the soil or by the rotary action of a cutting tool (augur, drill
bit) revolving around a vertical axis. This breaks and chews the rocks, with the
residues usually brought up to the surface by sludge. They can be up to 300 m deep.

1. Numerous techniques are possible for drilled wells :

They are drilled manually or cheap manual resources are used (for example,
gimlets called augurs which are turned with muscle power). The most
frequently used techniques are :
- Hand-augur drilling
- Percussion drilling
- Water injection (or water jetting) drilling
- Sludge drilling.

2. Or light motor-driven means (pumps, compressors) are used to dig the

ground
- Rotary-percussion drilling
- Rotary drilling

3. Or heavy drilling machinery is used that can reach great depths

- These drilling methods are often mounted on large, well-equipped lorries.
They use rotary drilling tools that chew or break the rocks or firstly, if the soil
is soft as is often the case when drilling commences, large augurs. The
boreholes can be several

hundred metres deep. A pump is often installed at the bottom to pump the
water up to the surface.