Impact of climatic variation on infiltration rate under an arid climate: case of Northern Gafsa Watershed, Tunisia
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Impact of climatic variation on infiltration rate under an arid climate: case of Northern Gafsa Watershed, Tunisia Achraf Melki1 · Habib Abida1 Received: 17 November 2018 / Accepted: 2 December 2019 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract The assessment of the impact of climate change on hydrological systems and their water resources, whether at regional or global scale, presents a major challenge in the twentyfirst century. Indeed, scientists need to present response elements regarding this climatic variation in order to establish adequate strategies for water resources management. In this context, this study examines the temporal variation of rainfall and its impact on infiltration in the Northern Gafsa Watershed (southwestern Tunisia), characterized by an arid climate. The analysis of the temporal variation of rainfall is based on daily data recorded over the period (1960–2015) at 6 rainfall stations, regularly spread over the study basin. The different components of the hydrological cycle (initial abstraction, infiltration, actual evapotranspiration and runoff) are estimated by WetSpass-M model. The analysis of the daily rainfall data showed that more than half of the daily rainfall contributions are less than 5 mm/day. On the other hand, the results of the WetSpass-M model show that the minimum infiltration rates exceed 40 mm/year, while the maximum actual evapotranspiration does not exceed 108 mm/year despite arid conditions. The maximum runoff and interception rates are 80.1 and 16.9 mm/year successively. Regression models relating monthly infiltration to rainfall and infiltration of previous months were developed. Both calibration and validation phases resulted in reasonably good agreements between infiltration rates estimated by the proposed regression equations and WetSpass-M model. Keywords Daily rainfall · Infiltration · WetSpass-M · Arid climate · Tunisia Abbreviation WetSpass-M Water and Energy Transfer between Soil, Plants and Atmosphere under quasi-Steady State in Monthly scale
* Achraf Melki [email protected] 1
Research Laboratory GEOMODEL, University of Sfax, Rue sokra Km 4 cité Habib Bourguiba, 3000 Sfax, Tunisia
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A. Melki, H. Abida
1 Introduction Arid areas are characterized by high potential evapotranspiration, low rainfall input and very irregular rainfall regime, resulting in very limited and overexploited water resources. The comprehension and quantification of groundwater recharge in these particular areas have become a necessity for good water resource management (Sumner 1996). Recharge, here, represents the part of water infiltration that reaches the saturated zone or the groundwater aquifer (Besbes 1978; Meinzer 1923; Lerner 2003). Several studies were carried out within this framework to contribute to the preparation of an adequate water resources management strategy, as shown in Table 1. The recharge of the aquifers is constantly variable in time and space. This variation is mainly related to climate change and surface soil characteristics and land
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