Evaluation of Potential and the Amounts of Groundwater Recharge in the Garmsar Plain Aquifer Using Water Table Fluctuations and Piscopo Methods

مهندسی عمران فردوسی

Article 7, Volume 36, Issue 1 - Serial Number 41, April 2023, Pages 1-18   

Document Type: Original Article

DOI: 10.22067/jfcei.2022.77818.1169

Authors

Elham Fijani^{* 1}; Sahar Meysami¹; Morteza Mozafari²

¹School of Geology, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

²School of Geology, College of Science, University of Tehran

Abstract

Groundwater resources are one of the main sources of freshwater supply, especially in arid and semi-arid areas. Estimating the amount of recharge is one of the most important problems in the sustainable management of groundwater resources and assessing the abstraction potential of the aquifer. In this research, first, the recharge potential in the Garmsar plain aquifer was obtained using six factors including slope, land use, geomorphology, lithology, drainage density, and line density, and then, to validate the resulting map, recharge was evaluated using the water table fluctuations and Piscopo methods. The results from the recharge potential map showed that its amount decreases from the alluvial fan in the north of the area to the margins. The amount of annual recharge of the aquifer varies from 1.95 mm in the south to 478 mm in the north of the area by the water level fluctuations method. The maps obtained from both methods showed the same trend in the area; the north of the aquifer area, which is located at the top of the Garmsar alluvial fan, has the highest amount of recharge, and the values decrease towards the south and the edge of the aquifer. The results obtained from the evaluation of the groundwater recharge value confirmed the potential map well.

Keywords

Groundwater recharge; water table fluctuations; Garmsar aquifer; recharge potential

References

[1] R. W. Healy, B. R. Scanlon, Estimating Groundwater Recharge, Cambridge University Press 2010.

[2] B.R. Scanlon, R. W. Healy and P. G. Cook, “Choosing appropriate techniques for quantifying groundwater recharge,” Hydrogeology Journal, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 18–39, 2002.

[3] K. Rushton, I. simmers, Eds., recharge of phreatic aquifers in (semi) arid areas. London: 1997.

[4] T. Ahmadi, A. N. Ziaei, A. Rasoulzadeh, K. Davary, “Groundwater recharge estimation using water table fluctuations (WTF) method,” 3^rd National Conference on Comprehensive Water Resources Management, Iran, September 10, (2010). (In Persian)

[5] V. Hung Vu, B. J. Merkel, “Estimating groundwater recharge for Hanoi, Vietnam,” Science of the Total Environment, ,vol. 651, no. 1, pp. 1047–1057, 2019.

[6] T. N. Adji, “Application of Water Table Fluctuation Method to Quantify Spatial Groundwater Recharge Witidn the Southern Slope of Merapi Volcano, Indonesia,” Indonesian Journal of Geography, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 157–171, 2015.

[7] A. Shaban, M. Khawlie, and C. Abdallah, “Use of remote sensing and GIS to determine recharge potential zones: The case of Occidental Lebanon,” Hydrogeology Journal, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 433–443, 2006.

[8] T. W. Githinji, E. W. Dindi, Z. N. Kuria, and D. O. Olago, “Application of analytical hierarchy process and integrated fuzzy-analytical hierarchy process for mapping potential groundwater recharge zone using GIS in the arid areas of Ewaso Ng’iro – Lagh Dera Basin, Kenya,” HydroResearch, vol. 5, -pp. 22–34, 2022. 

[9] G. Piscopo,  Groundwater vulnerability map explanatory notes Castlereagh Catchment, Centre for Natural Resources, NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation, 2002.

[10] Asarab Consulting Engineers Company. Water budget updating study in DASHT-E-KAVIR basin, 12017. (In Persian)

[11] M.R. Zabihi, G. Kamali, H. Imani nasab, “Evaluation and zoning the vulnerability of Garmsar aquifer to pollution using DRASTIC index in GIS environment,” The third national conference on crisis management, safety; Health, environment and sustainable development, Iran, June 25, (2017). (In Persian)

[12] S. P. Rajaveni, K. Brindha, and L. Elango, “Geological and geomorphological controls on groundwater occurrence in a hard rock region,” Applied Water Science, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 1377–1389, 2017.

[13] R. W. Healy, and P. G. Cook, “Using groundwater levels to estimate recharge,” Hydrogeology Journal, vol. 10, no 1, pp. 91–109, 1979.

[14] M. Parvin, S. Negahban, “The effect of geomorphologic and geological characteristic on the recharge of alluvial aquifers (case study: Gilan-e- Gharb alluvial aquifer),” Researches in earth Sciences, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 167–180, 2019. (In Persian)