Groundwater resource potential of Azna-Aligoudarz plain using environmental variables and frequency ratio (FR) model

Population increase and excessive use of different water resources, has led to special attention to groundwater resources. In this study, the efficiency of frequency ratio model in groundwater potential mapping in Azna-Aligoudarz plain, Lorestan was investigated. The 11 effective groundwater potential factors, (altitude, lithology, curvature, slope, aspect, land use, distance from rivers, drainage density, fault distance, fault density, pedology, topographic wetness index; TWI) were prepared using GIS. The location of 370 wells in the study area with discharge more than 11 (m3/h) was choosed and were divided in two groups of training (70%) and validation (30%) wells. Then the layers of environmental variables were classified and based on the density of wells and frequency ratio model, the weight of each class was determined. Finally, the groundwater potential map was prepared based on the frequency ratio model. Validation of final map was performed using relative operating characteristic (ROC) method. The result shows that the generated groundwater potential map using frequency ratio with 72.1% accuracy value, showed the high ability of this model in groundwater potential mapping. The groundwater potential map of the region showed that classes with a low, moderate, high and very high potential have been estimated to be 210.79, 210.24, 210.29 and 209.24 km2, respectively.