Identification of potential artificial groundwater recharge zones in Northwestern Saudi Arabia using GIS and Boolean logic

• Focuses on groundwater augmentation through artificial recharge in arid regions.
• Integrates 6 thematic layers in GIS using Boolean logic to identify recharge zones.
• Wadi beds are found to be most suitable sites for artificial groundwater recharge.
• Identified recharge sites are classified into high priority and low priority.
• Priority of recharge sites is based on their proximity to available water sources.

Identifying potential groundwater recharge zones is a pre-requisite for any artificial recharge project. The present study focuses on identifying the potential zones of Artificial Groundwater Recharge (AGR) in Northwestern Saudi Arabia. Parameters including slope, soil texture, vadose zone thickness, groundwater quality (TDS) and type of water bearing formation were integrated in a GIS environment using Boolean logic. The results showed that 17.90% of the total studied area is suitable for AGR. The identified zones were integrated with the land use/land cover map to avoid agricultural and inhabited lands which reduced the total potential area to 14.24%. Geomorphologically the wadi beds are the most suitable sites for recharge. On the basis of the potential AGR zones closeness to the available recharge water supply (rain water, desalinated sea water and treated waste water) the potential zones were classified as Category A (high priority) and Category B (low priority).