Sustainable Management Plan for Enhancing Arid Aquifers Resiliency Under Climate Change and Anthropogenic Impacts

Sustainable management and augmentation of aquifers are major challenges for arid countries like Qatar. Qatar has a hyper-arid climate characterized by minimal rainfall and extremely high temperatures. Over the last two decades, the country’s population has risen fivefold, Doha urbanization has risen eightfold, and per-capita water consumption has reached an unprecedented rate. The combined effects of these factors pressurized the country’s aquifers, leading to severe water shortages (e.g., water table decline and storage losses) and high deteriorations in quality (e.g., seawater intrusion). This hinders the current expansion of agricultural activities and food security, and, therefore, threatens a critical development pillar of the Qatar National Vision 2030: ensuring “Food Security and Safety”. The challenge, therefore, is to stop the enduring depletion and to manage and augment aquifer storage while at the same time meeting increased demands. This complex challenge exhibits the dire necessity of an integrated approach for the sustainable management of aquifers based on understanding their response to human needs and climatic stresses.The stepwise methodology comprised four parts. The first step included historical data collation, analysis, and future projections of demand. The study proceeded by projecting climatic data through 2100 under two representative concentration pathways using an ensemble of climate models. Following that, a physically-based spatially distributed hydrological model was built to estimate groundwater recharge. Some field and lab work was conducted to analyze evapotranspiration losses and characterize hydraulic properties. Then, the consequent impact on the groundwater system was simulated using 3D finite-difference-based groundwater flow model. The resulting change in groundwater depth and storage were simulated, and consequently, modeling results were used to examine possible scenarios for aquifer protection against climate change and anthropogenic impacts. While Qatar is the case study, the proposed approach is also applicable in arid areas with similar characteristics.