Water and Environmental Engineering

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GIS-Based Modeling of Groundwater Recharge for The West Bank
(2008) Adel ”Mohammad Said” Mahmoud Juaidi; Dr. Mohammad N. Almasri
Groundwater is the major source of water for the Palestinians. Efficient management of this resource requires a good understanding of its status. This understanding necessitates a characterization of the utilizable quantities and the corresponding qualities. This thesis focuses on the quantification of groundwater recharge for the entire West Bank and for each aquifer using the Soil Moisture Deficit (SMD) method. The SMD method is the most applicable method for recharge estimation under arid and semi-arid conditions. ModelBuilder of GIS was utilized to facilitate the recharge quantification and to efficiently account for the spatiality inherent in recharge. Results confirm that the highest recharge occurs in the North-West of the West Bank and the lowest in the South-East. The long term average recharge for the entire West Bank was calculated based on the available historical records that start from 1975 to 1997. The results of the recharge for the entire West Bank equals 610 mcm. And the total annual recharge for the entire West Bank is 852 mcm for the year 2004. Overall, the recommendations call for an immediate intervention to study scenario analysis such as climatic change and its impact is required to predict the recharge behavior in the future to get effective groundwater modeling and management.