Groundwater Potential Assessment and Characterization of Genale-Dawa River Basin

Abstract

Genale-Dawa River Basin is one of the largest and most drought prone re-gions in Ethiopia. As a result a search for alternative source of water has always been a major issue in the region. This study therefore, aims at characterizing and evaluating the ground water potential resource of the river basin. The delineation and numerical discretization of the river basin were primarily done for the proper development of the problem domain. And the groundwater governing equation was solved at individual nodal points of the discretized region using a 3-D numerical ground water model called TAGSAC. This resulted in monthly average groundwater table fluctuation and replenishable ground water potential estimation. Hydrogeological classification was also done based on hydraulic conductivity values obtained from model calibration.