Integrating Spatial Multi Criteria Decision Making (SMCDM) with
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for determining
suitable areas for artificial groundwater recharge
Mohammad Zare and Manfred Koch
Department of Geohydraulics and Engineering Hydrology, University of Kassel, Germany
The Shabestar plain is a semi-arid area that is located in northwest Iran. Increasing
population, agricultural development and, coming with it, illegal well pumping, have
increased the exploitation of groundwater resources in that area tremendously over the past
decades. This phenomenon, along with some seasonal droughts that have occurred in recent
times, has led to a severe decrease of the groundwater levels in the Shabestar aquifer system.
In order to reduce this crisis, the establishment of groundwater artificial recharge projects can
be a suitable option. One of the typical climate characteristics of semi-arid areas are stormy
rainfalls that can produce considerable runoff. Using this runoff-water for artificial recharge
spreading basins is a great opportunity to avoid further decreases of the groundwater table.
An important tasks in preparing such projects consists in the determination of suitable areas
for their implementation.
In this study, spatial Multi Criteria Decision Making (SMCDM) is used in combination with
a Geographic Information System (GIS) to determine suitable artificial recharge areas, based
on their potential to store water and the appropriate properties of several GIS-data layers. For
the latter, seven main hydro-geological parameters including land slope, soil hydrologic
groups, alluvium thickness, quaternary formation, groundwater level are considered as main
layers, while pasture land and water drainage network are considered as efficient layers in
locating suitable artificial recharge areas. The data layers for each these groups are supplied
by GIS. The ranges of changes of the five main layers are then classified in accordance with
their importance in locating these areas. Afterwards these data layers are assessed relative to
each other, applying the Analytical Hierarchy System (AHP) and finally set up in the GIS
environment. As mentioned, the presence of pasture areas and water drainage network is a
major criteria in the decision making process.
Based on the results of the SMCDM process, seven separate regions, measuring a total area
124.32 km2 (10.42% of the total flood plain area) have been chosen as the most appropriate
places for the implementation of artificial recharge spreading basins. Based on the annual
potential of runoff production, that has been calculated by the Justin method, these areas have
then been prioritized. The results show that the third region, with an area of 38.63 km2 is best
for artificial recharge, as is provides a potential runoff of 7.65 million cubic meters (MCM)
per year. Following in ranking are the second and first region.