Assessment of groundwater budget in Aspas alluvial aquifer of Fars Province

Fakourian, Mohammad Hosein; Naderi, Mostafa; Joodaki, Gholamreza

doi:10.22077/jaaq.2023.6004.1051

Assessment of groundwater budget in Aspas alluvial aquifer of Fars Province

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Mohammad Hosein Fakourian ¹

Mostafa Naderi ²

Gholamreza Joodaki ²

¹ MSc Student, Department of Surveying (Geomatics) Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Zanjan, Zanjan, Iran.

² Assistant professor, Department of Earth Sciences, Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IASBS), Zanjan, Iran.

https://doi.org/10.22077/jaaq.2023.6004.1051

Abstract

Water crisis in Iran, especially in recent years, highlights that quantifying the water budget is a vital information for management of water resources. Water budget in Aspas alluvial aquifer (728.81 km2) of northern Fars Province is evaluated during the observation period (2002-2017) based on climatic and hydrogeological data. Then calculated changes in annual aquifer storage using water budget approach are compared with corresponding values calculated using actual water table fluctuation, implying a good agreement. Water budget approach indicates that Aspas aquifer has experienced storage loss by 29.34 million cubic meters (MCM) per year during the observation period 2002-2017, resulting in mean annual water table declining by 0.82 cm per year. About 78% of the volume of groundwater inflow is abstracted again by deep and semi-deep wells. As a result, groundwater over-exploitation due to pumping wells is the main cause of water table drop in Aspas aquifer during the study period, however, droughts (for example in years 2013-2017) may intensify the water table declining and reducing groundwater storage. Groundwater abstraction rate, therefore, must be reduced to prevent further water table declining in Aspas aquifer. Strategies such as reduced cultivated area, increased irrigation efficiency and cultivating low water requirement crops can decrease groundwater abstraction rate.

Keywords

Alluvial aquifer'

Aspas Plain'

Aquifer unit hydrograph'

Drought'

Groundwater budget'

Subjects

ًQanat and aquifer

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