Abstract:
Groundwater resources have a fundamental importance to meet the rapidly increasing agricultural, livestock and domestic water supply requirements in the region especially in Robit watershed. This resource is almost the only key to economic development in the area and hence the quantification of this water resource is necessary for the efficient and sustainable water resource management.
In this study spatial variability of Irrigation water requirement, spatial variability of water use (abstractions) and spatial variability of groundwater recharge were estimated for Robit watershed in the eastern part of Lake Tana.
Satellite images (Planet Scope image), ERDAS IMAGINE 2014 coupled with Google Earth, GIS 10.3.1 software, QSWAT model coupled with QGIS were applied to compute groundwater recharge of the watershed..
Satellite image (Planet Scope on 2nd February 2017) was used to determine type and area of cultivated crops. 5 main crops and 7 land use type areas were distinguished. Ground truth data was used for accuracy assessment and the overall accuracy and kappa coefficient values were found to be 95.51% and 92.31% respectively and from the analysis 13% of the area is irrigated.
CROPWAT model was applied to calculate actual evapotranspiration and net irrigation water requirement based on local climatic data and derived crop data on satellite image processing. This model calculated net irrigation water requirement for some dominant crops such as: Khat (Catha edulis Forsk), hop (Rhamnus prinoides), coffee, tomato and green pepper in the study area.
Calibrated QSWAT model was applied to estimate net ground water recharges based on local climatic data, Soil map, crop management data and derived land use map on satellite image processing.
The assessment showed that the total amount of water applied for irrigation, domestic and livestock purposes was estimated as 1.35 Mm3/year, 0.02 Mm3/year and 0.03 Mm3/year respectively. The net groundwater recharge was estimated as 3.18 Mm3/year with in the watershed.
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The monitoring of household water abstraction was important to estimate whether the actual groundwater supply can meet current and future irrigation, livestock and domestic demands or not. The estimation from the water abstraction survey shows that the total volume of water abstracted for irrigation, domestic and livestock uses with in the watershed was estimated as 1.40 Mm3/year.
From the assessment it can be clearly seen that only 44% of ground water resource is extracted annually in the area and there is a chance to expand irrigation areas and the current water usage for different purpose in the future.