Using Remote Sensing and GIS-Based Frequency Ratio Technique for Revealing Groundwater Prospective Areas at Wadi Al Hamdh Watershed, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

For socioeconomic development in arid regions, there is an increasing need for groundwater resources due to rapid population expansion. It is necessary to apply innovative approaches for managing the sustainability of groundwater resources. Thus, remote sensing, geologic, climatic, and hydrologic data are integrated through the GIS-based frequency ratio and overlay analysis for assessing the spatial distribution of groundwater potential zones (GWPZs) of Wadi Al Hamdh, Saudi Arabia. Twelve factors controlling groundwater’s existence and infiltration were identified, normalized using the frequency ratio technique and combined through GIS techniques. To accomplish this, 313 well locations in the study area were used for training (70%) and 137 well locations were utilized for validation (30%). Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and field data, the model predictions were validated and showed very good performance (AUC: 0.893). The five zones on the GWPZs map correspond to 2.24, 5.81, 13.39, 53.90, and 24.65% of the entire area. These are: excellent, good, moderate, low, and very low perspectivity. As a good example, the applied approaches provided very good results that are significant to planning and sustainable development as well as managing groundwater resources in arid regions.