Sensitive analysis of ground recharge estimation model, for semiarid areas

The rapid demographic evolution wields a big pressure on water resources potentialities; in addition, the climate change effects have influenced the natural renovation rate of water resources around the world. Starting from a previous published model, a sensitive analysis was established after introducing three parameters as watershed topography, stream network density and geology index to illustrate the impact of each of these parameters on the rate of groundwater recharge. This modified model has been improved by in-site experiment (soil chloride mass balance) tested in some selected sites in Sidi Slimane River located in the region of Djelfa at 300 km from Algiers (Algeria). The results obtained show that the parameters like geology, topography and the amount of rainfall and the drainage density influence the velocity of groundwater recharge. By introducing the chloride concentration in soil, the model becomes most independent and gives good results that can be used in water resources planning in semiarid land.