Abstract:
Tisabalima sub-basin is part of the Awash Basin and is found in South Wollo zone, Amhara National
Regional State. The sub-basin has a surface area of approximately 788 km
i
2
.
The study targets mainly steady-state groundwater flow modeling of Tisabalima sub-basin with a single
layer of average 200m aquifer thickness.
The major purpose of this study was to evaluate the current conditions of the aquifer system based on
the known level of exploitation in the model area, simulate one or more future scenarios of water
exploitations, and their effect on the sub-basin aquifer system.
The chloride mass balance (CMB) and soil water balance (SWB) methods were employed to estimate
the annual recharge of the sub-basin. The result was 172.2 and 124.29 mm/year respectively. Therefore,
the average result of the above two methods was 148.26 mm/year. MODFLOW which is the USGS
modular three-dimensional finite-difference groundwater flow model was selected, to simulate the
system behavior under different stress conditions for the sub-basin. Model calibration was carried out
by trial-and-error method using groundwater contours constructed from heads collected in thirty head
observation points.
The model domain was discretized into 230 rows by 182 columns with a grid size of 200 m by 200 m
and contains a total of 41,860 cells. Considering the boundary conditions of the sub-basin the northern,
western, southern, and southeastern parts are groundwater divides and were represented by no-flow
boundaries. The northeastern part of the sub-basin was represented by a general head boundary.
The water balance of the sub-basin under steady-state conditions reached equilibrium conditions with
recharge from precipitation 3.1935079E+05 m
3
/d, well abstraction 3.7126080E+04 m
/d, and outflow
through the general-head boundary 2.2343695E+04 m
3
/d. The recharge conditions in Tisabalima subbasin
are
characterized by two sources of water that is recharged from precipitation and seepage from
Hayk and Ardibo lakes. On the other hand, outflow from the aquifer are characterized by baseflow, well
abstraction, and outflow through the general head boundary.
25
percent change in recharge which will bring a significant effect on the simulated results of the model.
On the other hand, parameters like pumpage, and increase in hydraulic conductivity especially up to 25
% can be varied, with minor effects on the model simulation results. The steady-state withdrawal rate
was increased by 50% and 75%, these increases are equivalent to withdrawing an additional 18563.04
The model is most sensitive to a decrease in hydraulic conductivity by 50 percent and beyond
3
m
3
/d or 214.85 l/s, and 27844.56 m
3
/d or 322.27 l/sec over the whole catchment respectively, and the
increased withdrawals were distributed among the existing wells.
Increasing the existing pumping from the aquifer by 50% resulted in a corresponding reduction of 2.54
% in outflow through the general-head boundary and a 5.9 % reduction in groundwater discharge to
streams from the sub-basin. In addition to that, increasing existing aquifer pumping by 75% results in a
22,839.86 m
3
/day decrease in base flow, which is around 8.87 % of the base flow of the calibrated steadystate
model. Generally, the groundwater level declined by 14.24 m on average up on an increase in
pumping by 75 %