Groundwater Management for Agricultural Purposes Using Fuzzy Logic Technique in an Arid Region

Abstract

The study aimed to determine groundwater’s suitability for irrigation and cattle rearing in Kuwait. In this regard, groundwater samples were collected from Umm Al Aish (UA) and adjoining Rawdhatain (RA) water wellfields to develop groundwater suitability maps for irrigation purposes using the fuzzy logic technique in ArcGIS. RA was dominated by Na-Cl, Na-Ca, and Ca-SO4 water types, whereas UA was dominated by the Ca-Mg water type. Due to the influence of the temperature and pCO2, the carbonates were inferred to be more susceptible to precipitation in the soil than the sulfates. The ternary plots for both regions revealed that the samples’ suitability ranged from good to unsuitable. Spatial maps of nine significant parameters governing the irrigation suitability of water were mapped and integrated using the fuzzy membership values for both regions. The final suitability map derived by overlaying all the considered parameters indicated that 8% of the RA region was categorized as excellent, while UA showed only 5%. Samples situated in the study areas showed an excellent to very satisfactory range for livestock consumption. Developing a monitoring system along with innovative water resource management systems is essential in maintaining the fertility of the soil and existing groundwater reserves.

Mapping of Groundwater Recharge Zones in Hard Rock Aquifer through Analytic Hierarchy Process in Geospatial Platform

“…After determination of various factors related to subsurface water, different thematic layer maps are generated. Later, their raster images are assessed, and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is adopted by assigning the proper weights to each thematic layer based on their levels of influence in the region relating to GWR for mapping the suitable zone for AR [27,28]. Approaches to this process (AHP) have drawn the greatest interest in groundwater management and sustainable development research, such as groundwater potential and AR site suitability mapping [29].…”