Applied Engineering in Agriculture · 2000 · 28 citations · 0 references
Natural ResourcesHydrologyWater Resources ManagementHydrologic ModelingWater Resource ManagementWater Resources PlanningIrrigationSurface Water HarvestingWater Resource AssessmentBasin SitingSmall-scale Water SystemsWater Availability AssessmentWater Availability For AgricultureWater Resources AdministrationWater Resources Allocation
Water availability is the main limiting factor in dry-land agriculture, throughout arid and semi-arid regions,due to low annual rainfall depth and its non-uniform temporal and spatial distribution. Water harvesting has been usedfor thousands of years to supplement scarce water resources in dry areas. Surface reservoirs are used to collect and storeprecipitation surface runoff so that stored water can be used for supplemental irrigation during long dry seasons. Thisarticle presents Hydro-Spatial AHP, a method for siting small water harvesting reservoirs. This method is used to rankpotential sites for such reservoirs based on a Reservoir Suitability Index (RSI) determined for each one of these sites. TheRSI is calculated using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) along with hydrologic modeling and the AnalyticHierarchy Process (AHP). This method was applied to Irsal, a dry-land agricultural region in Lebanon. Results revealthat Hydro-Spatial AHP works well in that area. The article also shows the flexibility of the method with respect to thecriteria used for ranking the candidate sites.