Artificial Recharge of Treated Wastewater for Sustainable Management of Groundwater Systems in Urban Areas in Critical Condition

groundwater sustainability is defined as development and use of ground water in a manner that can be maintained for an indefinite time to meet both current and future beneficial purposes without causing unacceptable environmental, economic, or social consequences. Augmenting and enhancing the available urban groundwater resources by artificial recharge of reclaimed urban wastewater is an interesting method to achieve groundwater sustainability. The use of recycled municipal waste water, as a non-conventional water resource, has received increasing attention in recent years. The primary reason for considering use of recycled water in ground water recharge is that it is available for reuse at a relatively low coast and that it provides a dependable source of water even in drought years. In this paper the importance of artificial recharge of treated urban waste water in combating water scarcity problems in urban areas located in arid and semi-arid regions and in addressing the sustainability of groundwater resources will be discussed. An example of an artificial recharge method based on surface infiltration is presented. In Makkah City, Saudi Arabia, the flow of treated waste water is diverted into a dry natural channel of an ephemeral stream. Advantage of this method is that it uses natural topographic features. To investigate the impact of the reclaimed water infiltration on the storage of groundwater in the aquifer and for a proper management of groundwater, as a tool a simulation model based on the numerical analysis is used. A well-known code MODFLOW is utilized for this purpose. Only quantitative aspect of ground water flow is considered. On the basis of the modeling effort, it was concluded that use of the lower Famagusta for recharge of reclaimed waste water is feasible.

کلیدواژه ها:

wastewater reuse ، artificial recharge ، groundwater augmentation ، wastewater disposal ، groundwater simulation