Groundwater overuse in arid areas: case study of syncline Bouguirat-Mostaganem, Algeria
- PDF / 5,403,831 Bytes
- 15 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 58 Downloads / 205 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
Groundwater overuse in arid areas: case study of syncline Bouguirat-Mostaganem, Algeria Hassan Benfetta 1
&
Abid Ouadja 2
Received: 16 January 2019 / Accepted: 29 July 2020 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2020
Abstract Most Algerian agricultural areas are facing groundwater depletion under the combined effects of climate change and big consumption due to irrigation and urban needs. This is exactly the case of syncline Bouguirat located in North Algeria, the topic of this investigation. This region has an agricultural vocation with a dominant market gardening and arid Mediterranean climate characterized by recurrent drought events. During the early twentieth century, the average annual rainfall was estimated between 400 and 500 mm; however, between the years 1990 and 2015, it declined to around 280 mm. During the same period, the water level of water wells and boreholes decreased to 10 and 30 m, while several observation wells of the piezometric network have dried up. The volume of water extracted is estimated at 87.184 hm3 per year while the contribution of water table is only 22.51 hm3 per year, resulting in a deficit of about 65 hm3 per year. Climate, hydrogeological, and piezometry studies show that the syncline of Bouguirat is indeed prone to inordinate overexploitation that generates substantial drawdowns. The comparison between the water demand and groundwater resources allowed an operating assessment of groundwater resources. In this article, the problem of overexploitation of groundwater in Bouguirat synclinal has been well studied by the accurate monitoring of groundwater retreat; this retreat has been determined by a two-part in-depth study. In the Materials and Methods section, a detailed piezometric study of the study area was conducted to confirm the groundwater retreat. The Results and Discussions section was devoted to the study of the variation of the piezometric level as a function of precipitation, which confirms that the retreat is caused by drought and overexploitation of groundwater, then to study the fluctuation of the groundwater by making an overall balance of the exploited underground resources which gave a huge deficit with a significant reduction of up to 30 m. At the end of the study, solutions for the good management of this resource were proposed to remedy this critical situation. Keywords Overexploitation . Groundwater . Deficit . Bouguirat syncline . Arid regions . Algeria
Introduction Groundwater overuse at a global level has tripled during the last 50 years. This problem is further pronounced in dry and semi-arid regions due to long-lasting drought and urban Responsible Editor: Broder J. Merkel * Hassan Benfetta [email protected] Abid Ouadja [email protected] 1
Department of Agronomy, University of Mostaganem, BP 188/227, 27000 Mostaganem, Algeria
2
Department of Agronomy, University of Mascara, BP305, 29000 Mascara, Algeria
demand. The most abusive human activities are successively industry, household and dry cleaners, steelworks, and thermal and n
Data Loading...
