Modeling of groundwater flow of Khanaqin area, northeast Iraq

Prediction of aquifer drawdown is important for the management of groundwater system especially in arid and semi-arid regions in which groundwater is a major source for agricultural and domestic requirements. Khanaqin area, northeastern Iraq, is under water stress due to increasing demand of groundwater for different purposes. The use of mathematical model is an important tool to predict the status of the aquifer drawdown. In this study we have used the MODFLOW model to simulate the aquifer in both steady and transient states. Good agreement of the simulated steady state heads with the observed ones is noticed. For transient simulation, the model was run for one year starting from January, 2013 to December, 2013, and the results were compared with the observed head of the three monitoring wells (w4, w8 and w28). The calibrated model is used to predict the drawdown of the groundwater for 4 years under three scenarios: 1) present discharge conditions maintained, 2) discharge increase at rate of the irrigation need in the future, i.e from 5L/ sec to 10 L/sec, 3) increasing well drilling for the next 4 years at specific locations. These scenarios and the resulted head distribution urge for integrated management program for the conjunctive use of both surface and groundwater recourses of the study area.