Regional overview potential zones for groundwater recharge in Wadi Hodein, south Eastern Desert of Egypt

Abstract

ABSTRACTWadi Hodein (WH) is one of the largest arid wadies in the eastern desert, where the groundwater (GW) is the main water resource, to meet the water demand of its residents. Therefore, GW recharge (GWR) potential zones map is to be constructed as an effective tool for GW management in WH. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) with geospatial analysis using ArcMap was used to delineate the GWR. Six thematic layers (soil map, slope, geology, geomorphology, lineament density, and drainage density) were used to produce the recharge map. The results classified the potential of WH recharging into five categories very low, low, moderate, high, and very high with their corresponding percentage areas of 2.60%, 9.30%, 42.9%, 31.30%, and 14.00%, respectively. Verification analysis using water quality data of the drilled wells inside the study area was conducted to confirm the resulted GWR potential map.

Keywords

• Analytical hierarchy process
• groundwater recharge
• weighted overlay analysis