The impact of land use land cover on groundwater level and quality in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, UAE: an integration approach using remote sensing and hydrological data

Abstract

Groundwater contamination is a serious health problem affected by land use/land cover (LULC) changes. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impacts of LULC on groundwater levels and quality in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi over the past two decades. Two sets of Landsat images were used to classify LULC using the random forest (RF) classifier, while an image-different tool was used to monitor changes in LULC from 2000 to 2020. After that, a spatial analysis was performed by comparing LULC maps against the hydrological maps. The results show a rapid increase in all LULC classes, whereas the groundwater level has depleted by 40 m. The results also show that the area of high-water quality across the study area was reduced by 479 km2 (0.79%). The results reveal significant hydrological changes in response to rapid urbanization.