Groundwater Recharge Assessment of Different Irrigation Scenarios by Using Unsaturated Zone Modeling (Case Study: Neishabour Plain)

Since many parts of Iran are located in arid and semi-arid regions of the world, groundwater recharge is an important component of the water cycle in these areas. In this paper, groundwater recharge under different irrigation scenarios for thirty logs lied in Neishabour plain was investigated. Daily data, including precipitation, evapotranspiration and leaf area index were used to run HYDRUS-1D software. Thirty observation logs with different depths of water table were selected at different locations in the plain. Analysis of the recharge rate in the wheat-fallow scenario showed that for different soil textures, groundwater recharge is dependent on the number of irrigation applications. For the logs with sandy soil textures, the maximum amount of recharge was obtained in five irrigation events scenario by an average of 325.23 mm year-1. For the logs with sandy clay loam soil texture, the highest recharge rate was obtained in the seven irrigation events scenario by an average of 67.43 mm per year-1. In the logs dug in loamy soil texture, due to the high depth of the soil block, the same recharge rate was obtained at different scenarios. In the case of a double-cropping scenario, groundwater recharge increased due to irrigation of tomato in summer. In this scenario, the highest recharge rate was obtained in observation log drilled in sandy soil texture with a depth of 15 m which was equal to 440.47 mm year-1.