Abstract
The watershed under investigation is located in northeast Libya and lies in arid (downstream) and semi-arid (upstream) regions with an aerial extent of 1511 km2. Rainfed agriculture and grazing form the regular economic activities of the local community, and they face challenges related to scarce water resources and soil loss due to less rainfall and higher runoff and evaporation. Exploiting Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) is one of the most promising solutions to these challenges. In this study, remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) approaches have been employed in assessing the potential surface water and identifying potential RWH sites, which are both critical tasks for effective water resource management. The runoff was estimated using Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS-CN) method, where the CN is computed by the LULC map generated from Landsat 8 OLI imagery that was intersected with the HSG layer. Moreover, due to the unavailability of rainfall data in the study area, the precipitation data from Multi-satellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG GPM) was used in the runoff calculation, where the average ten-year runoff volume was estimated as 26.5 Mm3. The RWH suitability sites were delineated based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, where the criteria selection was performed based on a literature review, followed by weighted overlay analysis to determine the layer of suitable sites. The results showed that optimal and suitable sites cover 2.5% and 9% of the watershed, while the rest of the watershed is covered by moderate, marginal, and unsuitable sites covering 17.7%, 25%, and 45.7%, respectively. The watershed is found to have the potential to support RWH for soil and water conservation. Also, the RWH structures map was generated according to the indigenous dominant types.
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Salah Hamad: conceptualization, methodology, software, data collection, spatial analysis, interpretation, writing-original draft, modeling, assessment, field investigation. Nilanchal Patel: review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Hamad, S., Patel, N. (2022). Surface Water Potential and Suitable Sites Identification for RWH in the Semi-Arid and Arid Watershed of Wadi Sammalus, Northeast Libya Using GIS and Remote Sensing Approach. In: Zurqani, H.A. (eds) Environmental Applications of Remote Sensing and GIS in Libya. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97810-5_8
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