Numerical modeling of the Ardabil plain aquifer and its management using optimization of Groundwater extraction

The rapid increase in the water demand has led to large-scale groundwater developments in Ardabil plain, and intense extraction of groundwater has caused water table to decline as much as 12 m during the past 25 years. Optimizing the groundwater extraction in order to prevent declination of the water table and the possible compensation of the reduction in the aquifer storage are the main purposes of this dissertation. In this study, according to the modeling protocol, at first the conceptual model of Ardabil plain aquifer has been designed. For this purpose, a geodatabase consist of qualitative and quantitative data has been created. Then Kriging and fuzzy logic methods have been applied to create different kinds of zoning maps. After determining of the aquifer geometry, input and output parameters, groundwater flow system and hydraulic parameters, Modflow 2005 code was used by the PMWIN8 software for modeling the groundwater flow in Ardabil plain aquifer. After the modeling, based on the declination of the water table, the Ardabil plain aquifer has been divided to 15 zones. Then, the optimized values of the permissible extraction have been estimated using the PEST software. Based on the obtained results to balance the water table of Ardabil aquifer, the highest and the least exploitation should be at the east and center of the plain respectively.