Advances in Remote Sensing and Geo Informatics Applications, 2018
Combating desertification includes having an accurate knowledge on the existing land degradation ... more Combating desertification includes having an accurate knowledge on the existing land degradation status and the amount of the potential risk. The remoteness, size and harsh nature of the world’s desert make it expensive and difficult to map or monitor this landscape or to determine the effect of the land use on them. Using the combination of Geographic Information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) techniques, this study tried to detect the changes in the land surface which may enable us to determine the existing land degradation and identify suitable sites for dams. The thematic maps extracted based on Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Land Degradation Index (LDI) should be useful to identify and determine the priority of the areas with the highest potential for rainwater harvesting.
IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 2020
Rainfall is a key source to diminish the problem of water scarcity in the arid and semi-arid regi... more Rainfall is a key source to diminish the problem of water scarcity in the arid and semi-arid regions. Rainwater harvesting is considered an imperious tool for rainwater conservation. Locating the appropriate location for rainwater harvesting structure plays an important role to increase water availability and improve water resources planning. The main goal of this paper is to recognize the proper location for a rainwater harvesting structure using a suitability model generated with ModelBuilder in ArcGIS. Six thematic layers i.e. soil structure, slope, drainage density, vegetation cover, distance to the roads, and runoff depth, are considered to find the proper site for rainwater harvesting structure. The result shows that 12% represents the suitable zone of the total study area, 42% represents the medium suitable area, and 46% represents not suitable areas to implement rainwater harvesting structure. The application of this scheme should maintain any policy adoption for site select...
IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 2020
The main obstacle to development in arid areas is the scarce and intermittent rainfall. Water har... more The main obstacle to development in arid areas is the scarce and intermittent rainfall. Water harvesting is considered one of means to grantee the sustainability of water for use in domestic, irrigation and even industry. The current study carried out on Haqlan valley basin in western part of Iraq. The selection of suitable location for rainwater harvesting is based on different key determinates such as environment, hydrology, socio-economic, and topography as well as the estimation of the storage volume and the surface area. This study aims to identify the suitable location for rainwater harvesting using Geographical Information System (GIS) and remote sensing with multi-criteria decision techniques in the study area. Many thematic maps were extracted such as soil map, vegetation cover, land use/land cover, slope, and digital elevation model. The drainage network and the contour line map were used to suggest six sites in the study area. The result shows that the total suitable area...
2020 13th International Conference on Developments in eSystems Engineering (DeSE)
In arid and semi-arid regions (ASARs) around the globe, groundwater is considered as an alternati... more In arid and semi-arid regions (ASARs) around the globe, groundwater is considered as an alternative source of water. Several methodologies and criteria have been applied and developed by many researchers to identify appropriate sites and mechanisms to detect groundwater potential areas. However, it is hard to determine the preferred method or instructions to select a suitable site. The primary purpose of this study is to determine an overall method for adopting Groundwater Potential Zones (GWPZs) in ASARs by gathering an inventory of the primary methods and criteria that evolved throughout the last few years. Seven main methodologies for site selection have been compared and summarized from 60 studies published in various scientific journals, information sources gained from practitioners or reports of international organizations. Geology, slope, soil, land-use/land-cover, lineaments, and drainage are considered the most important criteria for the selection of suitable sites for GWPZs. When these criteria were counted, the detection of GWPZs had the tendency to increase, however, impartial evaluation of these chosen methods is still missing. The majority of studies now choose GWPZs sites using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in integration with multi-criteria analysis and hydrological models.
Surface infiltration plays an important role in watershed management and flood forecasting; Furth... more Surface infiltration plays an important role in watershed management and flood forecasting; Furthermore increase the efficiency of irrigation system and reduce water losses during the irrigation process. Experiments carried out on the Wadi AL-Ratga of the western desert, Iraq during 2019; which had been selected as a study area. The infiltration rate data were collected using double ring infiltrometer at selected ten points of the selected study area. The duration of double ring test ranged between 30 minutes to one hour based on the infiltration speed in the soil, about 6 to 12 readings were recorded for the infiltration rate at each points. The aim of this paper is to check the ability of the common infiltration models such as Horton‟s, Kostikov‟s and Philip‟s to accurate estimated infiltration rate. These models were fitted to the observed infiltration data for estimation of models parameters and to find appropriate model for this region. Horton‟s infiltration model‟s parameters such as infiltration decay constants ‟k‟ And the value of infiltration capacity at onset of infiltration (fo) had been calculated in the ranges of 3.38-6.97 hr-1 and 21 to 47.8 cm.hr-1; respectively; for all the ten points. Philip‟s infiltration model‟s parameters such as the values of conductivity constant „A‟ and sorptivity ‟S‟ were obtained in the ranges of 3.48-12.49 cm.hr-1 and 9.96 to 17.2 cm/hr0.5; respectively. Similarly; the Kostikov‟s model‟s parameters „a‟ and „b‟ were obtained in the range of 8.85-24.38 and 0.732-0.829; respectively. Based on results of infiltration models at the selected points the predicated parameters have realistic capability predication. The results showed that all models provided the acceptable values for Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) as1.45, 2.01, 1.88 cm.hr-1 for Horton‟s, Kostikov‟s and Philip‟s model; respectively; The highest model efficiency (ME) as 99% for all models; and the maximum Relative Error (RE) values as 16% at all points except point 2 was calculated as 21%. This indicated that infiltration can be well-described by the Horton‟s model little more than other models at the study area.
The traditional Soil Conservation Service )SCS( process for calculating the runoff depth tends to... more The traditional Soil Conservation Service )SCS( process for calculating the runoff depth tends to be a very tedious and time time-consuming hydrological modeling process. Therefore, a geographic information system (GIS) is now being utilized as a tool alongside the common SCS-CN method for runoff calculations. This research aims to estimate the spatial distribution of runoff depth from Ratga, an agricultural watershed from the Iraqi Western Desert, using the SCS-CN method, GIS, generalized regression neural network (GRNN), field observation dataset, and remote sensing data. The GRNN model was used to predict the soil type based on spectral reflectance data. The results refer to an excellent performance of this model with the maximum absolute error was 8.44%, 14.11%, and 4.15% for sand, silt, and clay soil, respectively, and the sandy soil has the highest correlation coefficient (0.83). The outcome of the SCS method showed the CN value ranged from 70 to 85 of normal conditions. This investigation outline that the maximum volume of surface runoff of the 2018 to 2020 years was 4,324,528 m3. This paper proves that incorporating GIS with the SCS-CN model and ANN provides a robust tool for calculation runoff depth in the Iraqi Western Desert, representing barren catchments of Iraq.
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 2021
In arid and semi-arid parts worldwide, the investigation of the groundwater potential recharging ... more In arid and semi-arid parts worldwide, the investigation of the groundwater potential recharging zone is a main target to recompense the massive shortage in rainfall and surface water supplies. Recently, the combination of Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques became possible to overcome the water scarcity and supply all the water requirements for the population, agricultural and commercial purposes in the western Iraqi desert. Various thematic layers such as geology, slope, soil infiltration, land use and land cover, rainfall, drainage density, and lineament density were derived from RS data like Landsat 8 satellite images and the SRTM Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and published Iraqi geological maps. The thematic map of the parameters was generated and transferred into the raster form by employing the raster conversion tool in ArcGIS 10.8 software, and each layer was subjected to different assigned weights through adopting Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). The prospective map of the groundwater recharging zone in the study region is categorized into five regions. The output map shows that 3.21% of the area locates in the perfect potentiality zone, followed by 10.75% in the good potentiality zone, 38.6% moderate potential zone, 42.9% in the poor groundwater zone, whereas only 4.44% of the study area falls under the very high prospective zone. To attain the sustainable management of the groundwater in the Iraqi western desert, this study provides a primary methodology and significant database for the local management of water resources by adopting the groundwater perspective map.
An appropriate road network imposes on planners take into account factors such as land use, slope... more An appropriate road network imposes on planners take into account factors such as land use, slope, soil type, hydrology, and agricultural area. Due to various considerations and desires, the planning process is difficult hence there may be confusion in interest in the decision-making process. The use of a geographic information system (GIS) and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) assist planners in achieving more detailed and desirable results. Thus, reducing the complexity of the planning process and helping various stakeholders for drawing to general conclusion. The study site was chosen on an area between the cities of Ramadi and Heet in Anbar Province, western Iraq, where it suffers from congestion and traffic accidents. This research aims to integrate a set of evaluation criteria using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and a spatial multicriteria model to find the optimal path in the study area. In this study, two alternate paths were proposed and compared with the cur...
International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics, 2020
One of the most important challenges in the field of engineering hydrology and water resources ma... more One of the most important challenges in the field of engineering hydrology and water resources management, especially in arid regions such as the Iraqi Western Desert, is the process of predicting and quantifying the surface runoff. The limited available data about rainfall, runoff, soil properties, evaporation, and the lack of metrological stations make the process of predicting and calculating surface runoff a very difficult task. Modern technology can help with the purpose of compensating for the shortage of data and providing the information necessary to estimate the runoff and develop the system of water resources management in the region. The present study develops a model to determine the infiltration of soil from spectral reflectance using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) integrated with a geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS). Field infiltration measurements for 105 soil samples in the Al-Ratga catchment area in the Iraqi western desert are achieved. T...
Water is a key natural resource on earth, especially in arid and semi-arid regions with limited r... more Water is a key natural resource on earth, especially in arid and semi-arid regions with limited rainfall amounts. The impact of drought could be alleviated via constructing dams to ensure water storage and supply. The aim of the present study is to detect proper sites for planning rainwater harvesting (RWH) in the western desert of Iraq using both the Boolean overlay and the weighted linear combination (WLC) in the geographic information system (GIS). Potential sites of rainwater harvesting were identified using multi-criteria evaluation. Several criteria were used, including physical characteristics and climatological and socio-economic conditions to determine the proper location for RWH. Seven WLC parameters were used in the site selection process: runoff, slope, soil texture, land use/land cover (LULC), distance from irrigated lands, distance from residential areas, and distance from roads, while the Boolean overlay method used the stream order and distance from faults parameters. The results indicated that the final map can be classified into three classes of suitability, i.e., (i) highly suitable with 6% coverage (117 km 2 ), (ii) moderately suitable with 4% coverage (78 km 2 ), and (iii) least suitable with 90% coverage (1758 km 2 ) of the basin area. It was indicated that only three earthen dams could be executed along streams. This low data-intensive and cost-effective methodology offered can be adopted in arid regions to embrace RWH as an efficient strategy to handle growing water scarcity. The proposed method could be adopted in many countries that have identical environmental and physical conditions to the western desert of Iraq, which is the case in most arid regions.
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Water Management, 2019
Runoff water harvesting (RWH) is a potential solution for areas suffering from water scarcity, su... more Runoff water harvesting (RWH) is a potential solution for areas suffering from water scarcity, such as the western desert of Iraq. Site selection based on RWH ranking using a combination of a watershed modelling system, geographic information systems and remote sensing techniques may enable authorities and water engineers to determine potential solutions to water scarcity. In this work, these methods were employed to produce eight thematic maps of the volume of annual floods, basin area, basin length, maximum flow distance, drainage frequency density, lineament frequency density, basin slope and stream order. These maps were used to rank and classify probable sites based on equal weight and statistical weight. The results were then used to classify the selected sites into four classes, namely sites with very high, high, moderate and low RWH potential. The proposed method was shown to be beneficial in the identification of potential RWH sites.
Advances in Remote Sensing and Geo Informatics Applications, 2018
Combating desertification includes having an accurate knowledge on the existing land degradation ... more Combating desertification includes having an accurate knowledge on the existing land degradation status and the amount of the potential risk. The remoteness, size and harsh nature of the world’s desert make it expensive and difficult to map or monitor this landscape or to determine the effect of the land use on them. Using the combination of Geographic Information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) techniques, this study tried to detect the changes in the land surface which may enable us to determine the existing land degradation and identify suitable sites for dams. The thematic maps extracted based on Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Land Degradation Index (LDI) should be useful to identify and determine the priority of the areas with the highest potential for rainwater harvesting.
IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 2020
Rainfall is a key source to diminish the problem of water scarcity in the arid and semi-arid regi... more Rainfall is a key source to diminish the problem of water scarcity in the arid and semi-arid regions. Rainwater harvesting is considered an imperious tool for rainwater conservation. Locating the appropriate location for rainwater harvesting structure plays an important role to increase water availability and improve water resources planning. The main goal of this paper is to recognize the proper location for a rainwater harvesting structure using a suitability model generated with ModelBuilder in ArcGIS. Six thematic layers i.e. soil structure, slope, drainage density, vegetation cover, distance to the roads, and runoff depth, are considered to find the proper site for rainwater harvesting structure. The result shows that 12% represents the suitable zone of the total study area, 42% represents the medium suitable area, and 46% represents not suitable areas to implement rainwater harvesting structure. The application of this scheme should maintain any policy adoption for site select...
IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 2020
The main obstacle to development in arid areas is the scarce and intermittent rainfall. Water har... more The main obstacle to development in arid areas is the scarce and intermittent rainfall. Water harvesting is considered one of means to grantee the sustainability of water for use in domestic, irrigation and even industry. The current study carried out on Haqlan valley basin in western part of Iraq. The selection of suitable location for rainwater harvesting is based on different key determinates such as environment, hydrology, socio-economic, and topography as well as the estimation of the storage volume and the surface area. This study aims to identify the suitable location for rainwater harvesting using Geographical Information System (GIS) and remote sensing with multi-criteria decision techniques in the study area. Many thematic maps were extracted such as soil map, vegetation cover, land use/land cover, slope, and digital elevation model. The drainage network and the contour line map were used to suggest six sites in the study area. The result shows that the total suitable area...
2020 13th International Conference on Developments in eSystems Engineering (DeSE)
In arid and semi-arid regions (ASARs) around the globe, groundwater is considered as an alternati... more In arid and semi-arid regions (ASARs) around the globe, groundwater is considered as an alternative source of water. Several methodologies and criteria have been applied and developed by many researchers to identify appropriate sites and mechanisms to detect groundwater potential areas. However, it is hard to determine the preferred method or instructions to select a suitable site. The primary purpose of this study is to determine an overall method for adopting Groundwater Potential Zones (GWPZs) in ASARs by gathering an inventory of the primary methods and criteria that evolved throughout the last few years. Seven main methodologies for site selection have been compared and summarized from 60 studies published in various scientific journals, information sources gained from practitioners or reports of international organizations. Geology, slope, soil, land-use/land-cover, lineaments, and drainage are considered the most important criteria for the selection of suitable sites for GWPZs. When these criteria were counted, the detection of GWPZs had the tendency to increase, however, impartial evaluation of these chosen methods is still missing. The majority of studies now choose GWPZs sites using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in integration with multi-criteria analysis and hydrological models.
Surface infiltration plays an important role in watershed management and flood forecasting; Furth... more Surface infiltration plays an important role in watershed management and flood forecasting; Furthermore increase the efficiency of irrigation system and reduce water losses during the irrigation process. Experiments carried out on the Wadi AL-Ratga of the western desert, Iraq during 2019; which had been selected as a study area. The infiltration rate data were collected using double ring infiltrometer at selected ten points of the selected study area. The duration of double ring test ranged between 30 minutes to one hour based on the infiltration speed in the soil, about 6 to 12 readings were recorded for the infiltration rate at each points. The aim of this paper is to check the ability of the common infiltration models such as Horton‟s, Kostikov‟s and Philip‟s to accurate estimated infiltration rate. These models were fitted to the observed infiltration data for estimation of models parameters and to find appropriate model for this region. Horton‟s infiltration model‟s parameters such as infiltration decay constants ‟k‟ And the value of infiltration capacity at onset of infiltration (fo) had been calculated in the ranges of 3.38-6.97 hr-1 and 21 to 47.8 cm.hr-1; respectively; for all the ten points. Philip‟s infiltration model‟s parameters such as the values of conductivity constant „A‟ and sorptivity ‟S‟ were obtained in the ranges of 3.48-12.49 cm.hr-1 and 9.96 to 17.2 cm/hr0.5; respectively. Similarly; the Kostikov‟s model‟s parameters „a‟ and „b‟ were obtained in the range of 8.85-24.38 and 0.732-0.829; respectively. Based on results of infiltration models at the selected points the predicated parameters have realistic capability predication. The results showed that all models provided the acceptable values for Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) as1.45, 2.01, 1.88 cm.hr-1 for Horton‟s, Kostikov‟s and Philip‟s model; respectively; The highest model efficiency (ME) as 99% for all models; and the maximum Relative Error (RE) values as 16% at all points except point 2 was calculated as 21%. This indicated that infiltration can be well-described by the Horton‟s model little more than other models at the study area.
The traditional Soil Conservation Service )SCS( process for calculating the runoff depth tends to... more The traditional Soil Conservation Service )SCS( process for calculating the runoff depth tends to be a very tedious and time time-consuming hydrological modeling process. Therefore, a geographic information system (GIS) is now being utilized as a tool alongside the common SCS-CN method for runoff calculations. This research aims to estimate the spatial distribution of runoff depth from Ratga, an agricultural watershed from the Iraqi Western Desert, using the SCS-CN method, GIS, generalized regression neural network (GRNN), field observation dataset, and remote sensing data. The GRNN model was used to predict the soil type based on spectral reflectance data. The results refer to an excellent performance of this model with the maximum absolute error was 8.44%, 14.11%, and 4.15% for sand, silt, and clay soil, respectively, and the sandy soil has the highest correlation coefficient (0.83). The outcome of the SCS method showed the CN value ranged from 70 to 85 of normal conditions. This investigation outline that the maximum volume of surface runoff of the 2018 to 2020 years was 4,324,528 m3. This paper proves that incorporating GIS with the SCS-CN model and ANN provides a robust tool for calculation runoff depth in the Iraqi Western Desert, representing barren catchments of Iraq.
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 2021
In arid and semi-arid parts worldwide, the investigation of the groundwater potential recharging ... more In arid and semi-arid parts worldwide, the investigation of the groundwater potential recharging zone is a main target to recompense the massive shortage in rainfall and surface water supplies. Recently, the combination of Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques became possible to overcome the water scarcity and supply all the water requirements for the population, agricultural and commercial purposes in the western Iraqi desert. Various thematic layers such as geology, slope, soil infiltration, land use and land cover, rainfall, drainage density, and lineament density were derived from RS data like Landsat 8 satellite images and the SRTM Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and published Iraqi geological maps. The thematic map of the parameters was generated and transferred into the raster form by employing the raster conversion tool in ArcGIS 10.8 software, and each layer was subjected to different assigned weights through adopting Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). The prospective map of the groundwater recharging zone in the study region is categorized into five regions. The output map shows that 3.21% of the area locates in the perfect potentiality zone, followed by 10.75% in the good potentiality zone, 38.6% moderate potential zone, 42.9% in the poor groundwater zone, whereas only 4.44% of the study area falls under the very high prospective zone. To attain the sustainable management of the groundwater in the Iraqi western desert, this study provides a primary methodology and significant database for the local management of water resources by adopting the groundwater perspective map.
An appropriate road network imposes on planners take into account factors such as land use, slope... more An appropriate road network imposes on planners take into account factors such as land use, slope, soil type, hydrology, and agricultural area. Due to various considerations and desires, the planning process is difficult hence there may be confusion in interest in the decision-making process. The use of a geographic information system (GIS) and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) assist planners in achieving more detailed and desirable results. Thus, reducing the complexity of the planning process and helping various stakeholders for drawing to general conclusion. The study site was chosen on an area between the cities of Ramadi and Heet in Anbar Province, western Iraq, where it suffers from congestion and traffic accidents. This research aims to integrate a set of evaluation criteria using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and a spatial multicriteria model to find the optimal path in the study area. In this study, two alternate paths were proposed and compared with the cur...
International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics, 2020
One of the most important challenges in the field of engineering hydrology and water resources ma... more One of the most important challenges in the field of engineering hydrology and water resources management, especially in arid regions such as the Iraqi Western Desert, is the process of predicting and quantifying the surface runoff. The limited available data about rainfall, runoff, soil properties, evaporation, and the lack of metrological stations make the process of predicting and calculating surface runoff a very difficult task. Modern technology can help with the purpose of compensating for the shortage of data and providing the information necessary to estimate the runoff and develop the system of water resources management in the region. The present study develops a model to determine the infiltration of soil from spectral reflectance using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) integrated with a geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS). Field infiltration measurements for 105 soil samples in the Al-Ratga catchment area in the Iraqi western desert are achieved. T...
Water is a key natural resource on earth, especially in arid and semi-arid regions with limited r... more Water is a key natural resource on earth, especially in arid and semi-arid regions with limited rainfall amounts. The impact of drought could be alleviated via constructing dams to ensure water storage and supply. The aim of the present study is to detect proper sites for planning rainwater harvesting (RWH) in the western desert of Iraq using both the Boolean overlay and the weighted linear combination (WLC) in the geographic information system (GIS). Potential sites of rainwater harvesting were identified using multi-criteria evaluation. Several criteria were used, including physical characteristics and climatological and socio-economic conditions to determine the proper location for RWH. Seven WLC parameters were used in the site selection process: runoff, slope, soil texture, land use/land cover (LULC), distance from irrigated lands, distance from residential areas, and distance from roads, while the Boolean overlay method used the stream order and distance from faults parameters. The results indicated that the final map can be classified into three classes of suitability, i.e., (i) highly suitable with 6% coverage (117 km 2 ), (ii) moderately suitable with 4% coverage (78 km 2 ), and (iii) least suitable with 90% coverage (1758 km 2 ) of the basin area. It was indicated that only three earthen dams could be executed along streams. This low data-intensive and cost-effective methodology offered can be adopted in arid regions to embrace RWH as an efficient strategy to handle growing water scarcity. The proposed method could be adopted in many countries that have identical environmental and physical conditions to the western desert of Iraq, which is the case in most arid regions.
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Water Management, 2019
Runoff water harvesting (RWH) is a potential solution for areas suffering from water scarcity, su... more Runoff water harvesting (RWH) is a potential solution for areas suffering from water scarcity, such as the western desert of Iraq. Site selection based on RWH ranking using a combination of a watershed modelling system, geographic information systems and remote sensing techniques may enable authorities and water engineers to determine potential solutions to water scarcity. In this work, these methods were employed to produce eight thematic maps of the volume of annual floods, basin area, basin length, maximum flow distance, drainage frequency density, lineament frequency density, basin slope and stream order. These maps were used to rank and classify probable sites based on equal weight and statistical weight. The results were then used to classify the selected sites into four classes, namely sites with very high, high, moderate and low RWH potential. The proposed method was shown to be beneficial in the identification of potential RWH sites.
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