Despite that groundwater is an important and vital water resource, it is not well managed; depletion of aquifers around the world due to overexploitation is of serious concern especially in arid regions where the situation is much more alarming. Tafilalet plain in Morocco which belongs to this type of environment is certainly no exception and is viewing its groundwater disappearing. Artificial aquifer recharge (AAR) is found to be appropriate to such an urgent issue. Thus, the objective of this paper is the exploration of suitable sites to process Artificial aquifer recharge in Tafilalet plain by the joint use of remote sensing (RS), geographic information systems (GIS), and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. For doing so, eight parameters were considered as groundwater influencing parameters such as slope, soil, geology, land Cover/land Use, depth to the water table, aquifer transmissivity, electrical conductivity and drainage density. The laters were integrated and processed in a GIS, their thematic layers were created, and their relative weights were generated by The AHP method based on their significance in recharging the aquifer. Afterward, thematic layers were reclassified and assigned their weights, so the GIS overlay tool was used for inferring artificial groundwater recharge potential regions in the study area. 47 % were identified as suitable while only 12 % were identified as unsuitable. Such studies facilitate groundwater management for stakeholders and water managers because important decisions may be taken in a record time which will preserve water resources and prevent them from being in an alarming situation.
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