HYDROLOGICAL BASED MODEL TO ESTIMATE GROUNDWATER RECHARGE, REAL-EVAPOTRANSPIRATION AND RUNOFF IN SEMI-ARID AREA

Abstract

In semi-arid area, the groundwater recharge (GWR) is a very complicated process, because of several factors: lack of data and complexity of land. Proper management of the groundwater resources needs an organized approach to develop a new model for estimating the GWR, runoff and real-evapotranspiration. To do so, we have based our approach on two hydro-climatic parameters (temperature and precipitation). The results obtained by our formula are compared to the results provided by the analysis of the hydrological water budget (HWB). The objective of this research article is to test the reliability of the model by five criteria: Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency, Mean absolute error (MAE), Root mean square error (RMSE), Coefficient of determination (R²) and the Arithmetic mean error (AME). In this study, we demonstrate for a semi-arid region that a method, to the moderate data requirements, can be used and can represent a system of understanding useful for the management of groundwater without application of complicated models.