The main impacts of a managed aquifer recharge using AHP-weighted overlay analysis based on GIS in the eastern Wasit province, Iraq

Abstract

The management of groundwater recharge success and sustainability depends on many site characteristics. It is essential to integrate the maps of site's suitability and characteristics to identify suitable areas. The purpose of this study is to use a geographic information system (GIS) to find potential places for a project using managed aquifer recharge (MAR) in the eastern Wasit province, Iraq. Data for four effective criteria, terrain slope, Soil type/texture, drainage density, and hydrogeological efficiency, were collected, and a categorization map for each GIS criterion was subsequently created. The four steps are performed to identify this site: defining the problem, screening for the suitable areas, after the suitability map, and after the screening; the suitability mapping is divided into two zones: suitable zone and unsuitable zone. The results indicate that the site suitability for conducting aquifer recharge was classified into five categories, i.e., very high, high, moderate, low, and very low potentiality. These areas cover 26.83, 34.71, 24.98, 11.56, and 1.79%, respectively. GIS is widely acknowledged as an efficient approach for choosing MAR sites. This approach gives a better reference for analyzing suitable sites and the potential implications of applying MAR in an aquifer in similar water-stressed areas.