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GIS-Aided Zoning of Natural Groundwater Recharge Potential in Yasu River Basin, Japan

2001; Volume: 6; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.7132/jrcsa.kj00003257874

2186-6228

Shigeya Maeda, Toshihiko Kawachi, Alok Kumar, Takeo Maruyama, Shinzou Matsumura,

Soil and Land Suitability Analysis

A method of identifying regions with relatively high and low natural groundwater recharge potential in a recharge area is developed using GIS technique. Annual precipitation, annual surface runoff and annual evapotranspiration are regarded as influencing factors to groundwater recharge by considering water balance in each spatial unit. Estimation of distributed values of these factors, which are converted to scores ranging within 0 through 1, is performed with easily available data. This method is successfully applied to Yasu river basin, Shiga Prefecture, Japan, revealing two facts : (1) paddy fields play an important role to recharge groundwater ; and (2) change of land use during the period of 1965 to 1995 has increased the area with low recharge by almost 40%.