Selection of water harvesting sites in Horan valley

Abstract

Geographic techniques were used to select the sites of water harvesting systems within the Horan basin . Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and pairwise comparison were used to determine the importance of selected traits for water harvesting ( soil texture area, runoff, Land cover,). A total of 96 water harvesting sites were identified, of which 11 were found to be the most important. The results showed that the use of AHP to compare the pairs of traits affecting water harvesting. There are several promising areas for harvesting, totaling 96 sites, distributed between sandy and loamy sand and sandy clay loam. With 11 sites characterized by sandy clay soil and high surface runoff. The site 41 has the highest weight in the selected traits 0.557, while the site 84 was the lowest weight and reached 0.339 in terms of importance. The total area of the 96 study sites reached 35402.48 ha, which constitutes 19.7% of the area of the valley, while the area of the most important sites for harvesting, which amounted to 11 sites (633.49) ha, which constitutes (0.35%) of Total area of the valley and 1.7% of the total area of the water harvesting sites. The volume of water collected at all harvest sites (96 sites) was 20288131.92 m3 , 567159.58 m3 . The correlation between the different characteristics, the derivation of a mathematical equation that reflects the values of the best sites using a program, and then a map of calculated values, is calculated to determine their suitability in the application.