Detection of suitable sites for rainwater harvesting planning in an arid region using geographic information system
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Detection of suitable sites for rainwater harvesting planning in an arid region using geographic information system Hadeel Qays Hashim 1
&
Khamis Naba Sayl 1
Received: 16 June 2020 / Accepted: 24 September 2020 # Società Italiana di Fotogrammetria e Topografia (SIFET) 2020
Abstract Water is a key natural resource on earth, especially in arid and semi-arid regions with limited rainfall amounts. The impact of drought could be alleviated via constructing dams to ensure water storage and supply. The aim of the present study is to detect proper sites for planning rainwater harvesting (RWH) in the western desert of Iraq using both the Boolean overlay and the weighted linear combination (WLC) in the geographic information system (GIS). Potential sites of rainwater harvesting were identified using multi-criteria evaluation. Several criteria were used, including physical characteristics and climatological and socio-economic conditions to determine the proper location for RWH. Seven WLC parameters were used in the site selection process: runoff, slope, soil texture, land use/land cover (LULC), distance from irrigated lands, distance from residential areas, and distance from roads, while the Boolean overlay method used the stream order and distance from faults parameters. The results indicated that the final map can be classified into three classes of suitability, i.e., (i) highly suitable with 6% coverage (117 km2), (ii) moderately suitable with 4% coverage (78 km2), and (iii) least suitable with 90% coverage (1758 km2) of the basin area. It was indicated that only three earthen dams could be executed along streams. This low data-intensive and cost-effective methodology offered can be adopted in arid regions to embrace RWH as an efficient strategy to handle growing water scarcity. The proposed method could be adopted in many countries that have identical environmental and physical conditions to the western desert of Iraq, which is the case in most arid regions. Keywords Rainwater harvesting . Earthen dam . GIS . WLC . Boolean
Introduction Water is an indispensable natural resource for humankind, especially in arid and semi-arid regions with very limited rainfall amounts. Water deficiency tends to be a universal problem, where many areas agonize from harsh water scarcity (Jasrotia et al. 2009). The western desert of Iraq is classified as an arid area, which is facing a great demand to manage and provide water resources. Water accessibility in this region is habitually related to high intensities and a short period of rainfall. Generally, the nature of arid regions is categorized
* Hadeel Qays Hashim [email protected] Khamis Naba Sayl [email protected] 1
Dams & Water Resources Department, Engineering College, University Of Anbar, Ramadi, Iraq
by an irregular distribution of rainfall in terms of place and time, high temperature, evaporation, as well as lack of groundwater resources and surface water (Khosravi et al. 2019; Malik et al. 2020). Effective planning and management of water resource
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