Study on Spatial and Temporal Variations of Groundwater Level in Garmsar Plain

Water resources management especially for groundwater resources is a very important task in arid and semi-arid regions. Over last decades, because of various natural and anthropogenic factors, critical condition and declined groundwater level have been reported in most regions of the country. With regard to importance of this issue variation pattern of groundwater level in Garmsar plain was assessed using the best geostatistics estimator method over 2002-2011 period.‌‌ Among the various interpolation methods including Kriging and inverse distance weighting (IDW) with power 1-3, Kriging method was determined as the best interpolation method based on RMSE criterion. Results showed that spatial zoning maps of groundwater level in this period indicates intense depletion of groundwater level in the northwest of the region. Results also show that the average level of groundwater in the whole plain has decreased 3.5 m because of decreased rainfall and over-pumping of groundwater for agricultural uses in the period.