article · Water Cycle
Mapping groundwater potential zones helps secure water access amid growing resource demands. An evaluation of the Wabe River Catchment in Ethiopia combined geographic information systems, remote sensing, and the analytical hierarchy process across fourteen environmental factors. The resulting analysis classified the catchment into four prospective zones: low (2.65 percent), moderate (79.24 percent), high (18.11 percent), and very high (0.001 percent). Sensitivity testing identified geology and land use or land cover as the most significant controlling parameters governing the model. The strongest groundwater prospects occur in areas along the perennial Wabe River and within fractured, weathered aquifers located in favourable geological formations. Supporting moderate and semi-critical zones requires sustainable management strategies, including managed aquifer recharge coupled with watershed conservation practices.
Water security relies heavily on identifying where underground water supplies exist and how best to protect them. By pinpointing areas of high and moderate groundwater potential, regional planners and water managers can better target drilling, avoid resource depletion, and design managed aquifer recharge interventions that safeguard vital drinking and agricultural water supplies against rising demand.
This research provides applied spatial evidence suitable for regional water resource authorities, hydrologists, and civil engineering consultants. The findings can inform site selection for managed aquifer recharge installations and public or private water abstraction schemes. As an analytical assessment rather than a ready-to-deploy tool, the work serves as early-stage planning evidence that requires field-level verification and hydrogeological testing prior to infrastructure investment.
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As pressure on groundwater resources continues to increase, zoning the spatiotemporal distribution and occurrence of groundwater potential is critical to ensure sustained water security. Thus, the present study emphasized deciphering the groundwater potential zones of the Wabe River Catchment in the Omo Gibe River Basin, Ethiopia by converging evidence from coupled geographic information systems and remote sensing techniques, aided by the analytical hierarchical process. For this purpose, fourteen predisposing factors of groundwater were conceived. Multicollinearity for each geospatial attribute layer and consistency tests were executed before overlay scrutiny. The obtained result depicted zones with different groundwater prospects such as low (2.65%), moderate (79.24%), high (18.11%), and very high (0.001%) in the river catchment based on weighted overlay analysis. The map removal sensitivity analysis depicted geology and Land use/Land cover as the substantial controlling parameters for the estimate model. The most convincing groundwater potential zones were deciphered in some parts of the catchment along the perennial Wabe River and certain fractured and weathered highly productive aquifers in favorable geological regions. Overall, this study underscored robust sustainable groundwater management with the adaptation of managed aquifer recharge techniques integrated with various watershed management practices to enhance semi-critical and moderate groundwater potential zones in the catchment.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.watcyc.2024.01.002
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