Locating and Prioritizing Suitable Places for the Implementation of Artificial Groundwater Recharge Plans

Abstract

Artificial groundwater recharge plans (AGRPs) have become central in surface water and groundwater management. This work proposes a two-stage approach for locating and prioritizing suitable sites for AGRP implementation. The two stages consist of (1) determining the effective criteria weights to develop thematic maps with geographic information system (GIS) with which to locate suitable sites for AGRP implementation, and (2) prioritizing the suitable identified sites for artificial groundwater recharge with the Nash conflict resolution method. This paper’s approach is applied in the Kerman Province, Iran, and the application results demonstrate that the most suitable sites for AGRPs are located in the western half of the province.