Iraqi National Journal of Earth Science

Abstract

The Khazir River Basin is among the most important areas in terms of agricultural importance and diversity of agricultural crops; therefore, groundwater is extensively pumped in this area which is the main resource of water for domestic and agricultural purposes. The purpose of this research was to locate and map this crucial and significant water resource in order to better understand the occurrence and distribution of groundwater potential in the basin. This can be achieved through utilizing remote sensing data from Sentinel-2B with 10m resolution for obtaining Land use/Landcover (LULC) maps and lineament density., DEM (30m resolution) was used for drainage density and estimating the slope map of the area.  In addition, the geological map and interpolated rainfall data were used as well.  GIS has also been used for running the model to obtain Groundwater Potential Zones (GWPZs) map. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method is used for mapping the potential groundwater zones. The results indicate that approximately 89% of the studied region falls inside a zone with a high or very high groundwater potential.