Climate change is an important factor for sustainable water resource management in the arid and semi-arid countries. In this study, future trends of temperature and rainfall were assessed for several regions in Saudi Arabia. The linear and Mann-Kendall analyses showed an increase of temperature in all regions and decrease of rainfall in many regions. Following trend analysis, the outputs of the NCAR Community Climate System Model were obtained for three emission scenarios (high: representative concentration pathways RCP8.5; high medium: RCP6; and low: RCP2.6) for the assessment periods of 2025-2044, 2045-2064 and 2065-2084 respectively, and compared with the average values from the reference period (1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005). In all emission scenarios, temperature showed an increase from 1986 to 2005 in all regions. For RCP8.5, increase of temperature are in the ranges of 0.8-1.6 • C, 0.9-2.7 • C and 0.7-4.1 • C during 2025-2044, 2045-2064 and 2065-2084 respectively. However, rainfall showed variable patterns with respect to emission scenarios and assessment periods. In most regions, the RCP6 showed decrease in rainfall from the reference period while the RCP8.5 and RCP2.6 showed variable patterns. The increase of temperature and variable pattern of rainfall may increase uncertainty in developing sustainable water resource management strategies.
The Umm er Radhuma (UER) Formation is a major karst aquifer in Saudi Arabia. This study investigated the hydraulic and petrophysical characteristics of the folded UER carbonate aquifer using integrated hydrological and geophysical logging datasets to understand its complex hydraulic setting as well as detect possible water flow. Petrophysical analysis showed that the UER aquifer has three zones with different lithologic and hydraulic properties. The upper zone attains the best properties with average values of 20%, >100 mD, 3.30 × 10
−5
–1.34 × 10
−3
m/s, and 1.49 × 10
−3
–6.04 × 10
−2
m
2
/s, with respect to effective porosity, permeability, hydraulic conductivity and transmissivity. The gamma-ray logs indicate a good fracture system near the upper zone of the UER Formation. Pumping test measurements of transmissivity, hydraulic conductivity and storage coefficients were matched with those from geophysical logs and found to be within the expected range for confined and leaky aquifers. Hydrogeological properties were mapped to detect possible groundwater flow in relation to the dominant structure. The underground water of the folded UER aquifer was forced along meandering flow patterns from W-E to SW-NE through the anticlinal axes. The integrated approach can be further used to enhance local aquifer models and improve strategies for identifying the most productive zones in similar aquifer systems.
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