Simulation and Water Resource Management of Ajabshir Plain Aquifer

Groundwater is one of the most important resources for providing drinking and agricultural water demand in Ajabshir plain aquifer. In the recent years, because of overexploitation of groundwater resources in this plain, the water table declined, significantly, which is lead to salt water intrusion from Urmia Lake to Ajabshir aquifer and deteriorate the water quality in regions located close by the Urmia lake. In this study, water table fluctuation of Ajabshir aquifer simulated with PMWIN software. The model was calibrated based on automatic inverse modeling by using the Pest package in PMWIN software. The results of model verification showed that the developed model can predict the water table with acceptable accuracy. After model verification, we defined three groundwater discharge management scenario for the 4 next years and investigated accomplishment of these scenario impressions. These scenarios included continuing current condition, decreasing groundwater recharge by 10, 20 and 30 percentages, decreasing of groundwater discharge by 10, 20 and 30 percentages comparing to current amounts. The results of applying above mentioned scenarios to the models reveal that the groundwater level decline will continue in this plain, but with a lower slope which is probably due to constructing a dam on Ghaleh Chay River in recent years and decreasing the groundwater discharge by agricultural wells. The results also showed that by decreasing 30 percentage of groundwater discharge, the groundwater level will increase in next 4 years.