An Integrated DSS for Groundwater Management Based on Remote Sensing. The Case of a Semi-arid Aquifer in Morocco

Michel Le Page (), B. Berjamy, Y. Fakir, F. Bourgin, L. Jarlan, A. Abourida, M. Benrhanem, G. Jacob, M. Huber, F. Sghrer, V. Simonneaux and G. Chehbouni

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2012, vol. 26, issue 11, 3209-3230

Abstract: A Decision Support System has been set up as the result of a fruitful cooperation between several public and research institutions in the framework of a large cooperation program. The DSS aims to compare spatially and temporally sectorial water demands of the Haouz-Mejjate plain (Morocco) in regard to available surface and groundwater resources. It is composed of a tool for satellite estimation of Agricultural Water Demand (SAMIR), a tool for integrated water resources planning (WEAP) and a groundwater model (MODFLOW) each of them relying on a common Geographical Information System not described here. The DSS is operating on a monthly time scale. Agricultural water demand accounts for about 80 % of the total demand. In areas where groundwater abstraction is difficult to quantify by direct methods, multitemporal remote sensing associated to the FAO methodology is a simple and efficient alternative to estimate Evapotranspiration (ET). In this work, a monthly estimate of ET from irrigated areas is derived from freely available MODIS NDVI for the 2001–2009 period. An important part of the paper deals with the validation of these estimates with eddy covariance flux measurements installed on different irrigated crops of the region. Results are satisfactory with a minus 6.5 % error per year on the monthly time scale. This preprocessing allows to dichotomize irrigated versus non-irrigated areas, and then, to estimate groundwater abstraction in subareas distinguishing by their operating modes: traditional, dam or privately irrigated. A dynamic linkage between MODFLOW and WEAP transfers the results of one model as input data to the other. The model restitutes both spatial and temporal variations in head charges and allows the calculation of the ground water balance. After calibration, piezometric validation is acceptable for the majority of the 21 head control points. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Keywords: Decision support system; Groundwater; Remote sensing; Semi-arid; Evapotranspiration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11269-012-0068-3 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:26:y:2012:i:11:p:3209-3230

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-012-0068-3

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().