Assessment of Groundwater-Level Susceptibility to Degradation Based on Analytical Network Process (ANP)

Abstract

Groundwater resources are among the world’s most important and vital supplies which are highly required for continuation of human life as well as wildlife. The growth of world’s population and the occurrence of climatic drought in recent decades have put a severe strain on these blessings all over the world so that most of the aquifers have dried up and the depth to groundwater in wells has deepened severely. In the present study the Analytic Network Process was used to extract degradation risk zones of groundwater in Marand Plain. To do this, all the effective factors including precipitation, air temperature, land use, soil permeability, flow direction, proximity to rivers and groundwater exploitation via wells and qanats were used. After construction of the database in GIS environment, the structure of the network was designed in Super Decision software. Clustering and pair-wise comparisons of the elements were executed based on the results of the Expert Knowledge questionnaire and the priority weights for each cluster and parameter was extracted consequently. Finally, the priority weights of the criteria were applied on the map layers and the final degradation risk map created overlaying all the maps. According the final output of the study, the Eastern and Western parts of Marand Plain have the highest and lowest susceptibilities respectively. It’s also found that the groundwater decline trend mimics the surface topography and flow direction in which has an East-West pattern.

Keywords

• Susceptibility Assessment,Groundwater Degradation,GIS,ANP,Marand Plain

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