DETERMINATION OF WATER HARVESTING REGIONS IN IRAQI WESTERN DESERT USING GIS SYSTEM

Abstract

Water resources is one of the most important criteria for societies building and their development. Evaluation, planning, and management of water resources are rasid to be one of important subjects in the humans life, particularly in arid and semiarid region like Iraqi western desert, since precipitation is extremely limited and spatially distributed, with poorly available ground water supply.
Rainwater harvesting is defined as a method for inducing, collecting, storing and conserving local surface runoff for agriculture in arid and semi-arid regions.
This paper examines the effects of different variables on the water harvesting in Iraqi western desert like catchments area, bed slope geometric and topographic properties. By using unit hydrograph theory, the volume of harvesting water was calculated, and by frequency and statistical analysis to determine maximum harvesting water for return period (5, 10, 25) years, with geographic information system (GIS) we make a number of maps for the region of optimum harvesting water which can use for design of agriculture and irrigation project in Iraqi western desert. The study show there is a potential ability for using the harvesting water in Iraqi western desert.