Integrated Approach for Groundwater Exploration in Wadi Araba Using Remote Sensing and GIS

Abstract

Jordan has been recently classified as the fourth poorest country of water resources. Natural and human factors are affecting and increasing the stresses on these resources. Jordan had suffered from the continuous drought periods over the time. Furthermore, unbalanced demand vs. supply is always present as a result of high population growth rate. This study aims at the exploration of new water resources through the investigation of hydrogeological and groundwater resources in Wadi Araba Basin (Northern and Southern Wadi Araba Basins). The integration of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and data extracted from earth observation satellites with additional collateral data, coupled with selected field investigations and the geological knowledge of the area under investigation, provides a powerful tool in groundwater exploration. Weighted overlay modeling technique was used to develop a groundwater potential model with six weighted and scored parameters. The results of this model were calibrated against observed data collected from the existing wells’ information. The results obtained from this model show that about 40% of the study area was classified as having a good potential for groundwater exploration. The spatial distribution of these areas is highly correlated with the location of the existing groundwater wells. The generated groundwater potential map shows that there is a lot of unexplored areas that have a good potential for groundwater exploration.