Identification of Groundwater Potential Zones using Geographic Information System and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) (Case Study: Hable-rud River Basin-Iran)

As a consequence of population growth and increasing water demands, the importance of groundwater resources, as one of the vital fresh water supplies in arid regions, becomes plainly evident. In the current research, seven factors namely mean annual precipitation, drainage density, fault density, lithology, slope, and land use/land cover were chosen to identify groundwater potential zones. The thematic factor maps were created and the corresponding class and factor weights were assigned to factor maps using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. The groundwater potential map was created by superimposing the weighted thematic maps. The final potential map was validated by discharge data corresponding to 88 wells and springs located in the study area. The results indicate that the accuracy of the AHP method is about 78%. HHHGThe zones with high groundwater potential are situated in the regions covered with conglomeratic attached sediments, sandstone, old river traces, and areas with higher fault density. Moreover, mean annual precipitation has the highest contribution (0.355) to modeling process while the geomorphology (0.059) factor has the lowest importance. A total of around 49 percent of the study area identified to have moderate to high ground water potential. The results suggest that the AHP method has a high capability in identifying groundwater potential zones in the Hable-rud River Basin.