GIS based modeling of GWQ assessment at Al-Shekhan area using AHP and SAW techniques

There is a continuous need to assess Groundwater Quality (GWQ) for human beneficial uses especially in areas suffering a shortage of nearby surface water. This study aims to assess GWQ of 56 wells located at Al-Shekhan area for drinking, irrigation, and livestock purposes. Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) technique is used to extract weights of parameters that are needed in the calculation of Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) technique. Maps are created using Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and these maps shows the classes of suitable areas for each purpose depending upon the calculated indices which are extracted from SAW technique. The results show that the final map classifies the suitable parts according to the drinking, irrigation and livestock purposes, and it shows that the north eastern part of the studied area is suitable for irrigation and livestock only. A model of GIS and AHP is built to assess the suitability of GWQ in Al-Shekhan area, and can be a raw model to be applied to assess GWQ in any other area after inserting the values of their parameters.