Spatial Water Use efficiency Index towards resource sustainability: application in the island of Crete, Greece

O. Tzoraki, M. Kritsotakis and E. Baltas

International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2015, vol. 31, issue 4, 669-681

Abstract: This paper introduces a new index to test water resource sustainability in regions where groundwater is the main source of water supply. The Spatial Water Use efficiency Index (SWUI) is a geographical information system (GIS) environment index which expresses the ratio of potential available water volume (groundwater recharge minus water needs) to the respective water needs. Its low and/or negative values indicate water stress. SWUI is applied in the island of Crete, Greece, where water needs are mainly covered by groundwater abstractions. The annual water mass balance is estimated using the RIBASIM (River Basin Simulation) model. The total freshwater needs in the Cretan region reach 535 hm-super-3 annually according to the model's simulation. SWUI with values ranging from - 0.8 to 214.3 has proved to be an important visual tool towards depicting the low efficiency of the east part of the island to cover water demand and a useful decision-making tool in the sustainability evaluation of groundwater aquifers.

Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/07900627.2014.949637 (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:taf:cijwxx:v:31:y:2015:i:4:p:669-681

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cijw20

DOI: 10.1080/07900627.2014.949637

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Water Resources Development is currently edited by Cecilia Tortajada

More articles in International Journal of Water Resources Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().