GIS BASED GROUNDWATER POTENTIAL MAPPING AND RECHARGE 1 ESTIMATION: A CASE STUDY IN MELKAODA WATERSHED RIFT VALLEY LAKES 2 BASIN, OROMIA, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The groundwater potential zones of the Melkaoda Watershed were demarcated with the help of remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques. The parameters that were considered for identifying the groundwater potential zone like geology, slope, drainage density, geomorphic units, and lineament density were generated from satellite data and they were then integrated with weighted overlay in ArcGIS. Suitable ranks were assigned for each category of these parameters and weight factors were decided for them based on their capability to store groundwater using AHP approach and then the groundwater potential zones were classified into four categories as very low, low, high & very high. In addition, the groundwater recharge was estimated with the help of the WetSpass model using water balance approach. The parameters considered for this case generally included three types: hydro-meteorological (rainfall, temperature, wind speed, PET, and GWD), bio-physical (soil, landuse, topography, and slope), and attribute lookup (soil lookup, landuse lookup, and rain day lookup) tables. All the hydro-meteorological parameters were interpolated in ArcGIS for grid map preparation of each parameter and the prepared grid map was converted to ASCII file format for the effective model run. The model performance was checked through calibration and the obtained groundwater recharge result ranges 0.45 to 65.5 mm/year with the mean value of 32.87 mm/years and 3.4% contributed to groundwater as recharge. finally, the changes in groundwater recharge between two simulation period was stated again with help of WetSpass model using the LULC images of 1989 and 2018 to quantify the impacts of the LULCC. The parameters used for this analysis were the same as those used for groundwater recharge estimation except for the satellite image of 1989 and the LULCC analysis depicted that there was the expansion of built-up land and agricultural land. Agricultural land and built-up land were increased by 0.046, 2.56 rate per a year from 1989 to 2018 respectively. This paper finalized that there was access to the groundwater potential in the Melkaoda Watershed and this could overcome the water scarcity challenging the community in and around the area. The recharge which has been the main source of groundwater is decreasing from time to time as the result of this paper is indicating. Thus, to get sustainable groundwater potential, the recharge has to be well treated by increasing groundwater recharge