Determining the optimal depth of water wells in Kashan aquifer

Groundwater is the sole source of water for many of arid and semi-arid regions in the world. Groundwater overexploitation, drought and climate change have deteriorated the groundwater quantity and quality in recent decades. The decrease of well discharges is one of the main results of the falling the groundwater level. Increasing the depth of abstraction wells has been proposed to remedy this problem. This study aims to determine the optimal depth of wells in Kashan plain such that the remaining groundwatercan supply the water demands in a 15 years period. For this purpose, geological information along with data such as groundwater level in observation wells, aquifer bedrock, aquifer hydrodynamic coefficients and groundwater chemical quality data were used. Also, the prediction of the future status of groundwater quantity and quality were carried out on the basis of this data. Changes in the groundwater quality and quantity also were studied with considering the various scenarios of groundwater levels decline compared to its normal trends. According to the achieved results, The scenario of a decline of 25 percent compared to the normal trend were considered as the most appropriate management strategy to determine the optimal depth of water wells in the Kashan plain. Since the depth of the many of the existing wells is more than the proposed amount in this study, the increasing the depth of abstraction wells is not recommended in the study area.