Assessment of the Suitability of Rain Water Harvesting Areas Using Multi-Criteria Analysis and Fuzzy Logic

Abstract

Rain Water Harvesting (RWH) is any system that encompasses methods for collecting, concentrating and storing various forms of runoff for various purposes. Agriculture in semiarid tropics depends on the vagaries of weather, especially of the rain. Without doubt, the greatest climatic risk to sustained agricultural production in these areas, including Botswana, is rainfall variability. RWH has the potential to mitigate spatial and temporal variability of rainfall. Many methods of evaluating suitability for RWH, however, have limitations and/or drawbacks. This study presents an approach that will enable water managers to assess suitability of RWH for any given area by taking advantage of the capabilities of Earth Observation (EO) techniques and fuzzy multi-criteria analysis. Literature shows that the incorporation of fuzzy logic to multi-criteria analysis can improve the results in suitability analysis hence the study to explore these capabilities in RWH.