Estimation of Natural Recharge of Ardabil Aquifer Using CRD Method

Groundwater recharge from rainfall and the return flow of irrigation is essential for sustainable water resources management, groundwater modeling. Quantification of the rate of ground water recharge is a basic prerequisite for efficient ground water resource management. The rate of aquifer recharge is one of the most difficult components to measure when evaluating ground water resources. Numerous techniques are used to quantify recharge rate. One of these techniques is the cumulative rainfall departure (CRD) method. This method is considered to be one of the most promising and attractive due to its ease of use and low cost of application in semiarid areas. Numerous studies have been carried out to estimate groundwater recharge from rainfall. The CRD is a water balance method which depends on groundwater level fluctuations in shallow aquifers as a function of rainfall. Xu and van Tonder (2001) and Rasoulzadeh and Moosavi (2007) used the revised CRD method and Ahmadi et al. (2014) applied the CRD method to assess groundwater recharge in arid and semi-arid region.