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Assessment of the spatial–temporal distribution of groundwater recharge in data-scarce large-scale African river basin

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Abstract

The systematic assessment of spatial and temporal distribution of groundwater recharge (GWR) is crucial for the sustainable management of the water resources systems, especially in large-scale river basins. This helps in identifying critical zones in which GWR largely varies and thus leads to negative consequences. However, such analyses might not be possible when the models require detailed hydro-climate and hydrogeological data in data-scarce regions. Hence, this calls for alternate suitable modeling approaches that are applicable with the limited data and, however, includes the detailed assessment of the spatial–temporal distribution of different water balance components especially the GWR component. This paper aimed at investigating the spatial and temporal distribution of the GWR at monthly, seasonal and annual scales using the WetSpass-M physically distributed hydrological model, which is not requiring the detailed catchment information. In addition, the study conducted the sensitivity analysis of model parameters to assess the significant variation of GWR. The large-scale river basins such as the Omo river basin, Ethiopia, were chosen to demonstrate the potential of the WetSpass-M model under limited data conditions. From the modeling results, it was found that the maximum average monthly GWR of 13.4 mm occurs in July. The estimated average seasonal GWR is 32.5 mm/yr and 47.6 mm/yr in the summer and winter seasons, respectively. Further, it was found that GWR is highly sensitive to the parameter such as average rainfall intensity factor.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank two anonymous reviewers and associate editor for providing the constructive comments which helped significantly improving the quality of the paper. The first author would like to gratify Arba Minch Water Technology Institute (AWTI) and Ministry of Science & Higher Education(MoSHE) for financial support. In addition, the support of OWWCE (Oromia Water Work and Construction Enterprise), SCDSE (South Construction and Design Supervision Enterprise), SWWCE (South Water Work and Construction Enterprise), MoWIE (Ministry of Water Irrigation and Energy, Ethiopia) and ECDSI (Ethiopia Construction and Design supervision Enterprise) are greatly acknowledged for providing the data to conduct this research study.

Funding

Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Ethiopia and Water Resources Research Center, Arba Minch University, Ethiopia financially supported this research. [Project code: GOV/AMU/TH31/AWTI/WRRC/01/13].

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  1. Gelebo and Kasiviswanathan both equally contributed.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Water Resources Development and Management, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, 247 667, India

    Ayano Hirbo Gelebo, K. S. Kasiviswanathan & Deepak Khare

  2. Faculty of Water Resources and Irrigation Engineering, Arba Minch Water Technology Institute, Arba Minch, SNNPR, Ethiopia

    Ayano Hirbo Gelebo

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  1. Ayano Hirbo Gelebo
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Contributions

Ayano Hirbo Gelebo contributed to conceptualization, data acquisition, modeling, analysis of results, and original draft writing. K. S. Kasiviswanathan involved in conceptualization, supervision of data curation, visualization, review and writing/editing the manuscript. Deepak Khare performed supervision.

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Correspondence to K. S. Kasiviswanathan.

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Gelebo, A.H., Kasiviswanathan, K.S. & Khare, D. Assessment of the spatial–temporal distribution of groundwater recharge in data-scarce large-scale African river basin. Environ Monit Assess 194, 157 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-09778-z

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