Multi-criteria analysis for selecting suitable sites of water harvesting in Northern Al Tharthar Watershed
2021
Mohammed Abdaki | Raid Mahmood Faisal
Water scarcity in Iraq is becoming a critical issue as demand increases, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. In response, water harvesting (WH) is a promising technique that can effectively catch surface runoff and thus it could cover different water needs and mitigate droughts. The study objective is to identify and select potential suitable sites for theerection of dams for water harvesting in the northern Al-Tharthar watershed. The study focuses on building an integrated GIS-based multi-criteria model and by using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), where relative importance is obtained from (AHP) through use of ArcGIS 10.5. The model combines 7 Biophysical criterions including: slope, elevation, stream orders, annual rainfall, soil texture, land cover/land use, and runoff zones. However, 4 socio-economic criteria include: settlements and roads, population and rural density, agriculture density, and livestock water demand. Biophysical criteria importance weighted around 84.62% whereas socio-economic importance is 15.38% in the model. The final score for the degree of suitability is produced by using Raster Calculator, it includes 5 classes, from very high suitability to very low suitability. The results demonstrated that the middle and northern part has medium and higher degree of suitability for water harvesting. Furthermore, in the research area the medium and higher degree of suitability covers around 64.013% in contrast to 35.987% which is less suitable for water harvesting. Three potential dams have been identified as highly suitable with storage capacity from the first to the third 37,359,680.5 mᶾ , 76,273,409.9 mᶾ and 9,690,685.6 mᶾ respectively.
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