Disasters and Risk Reduction in Groundwater: Zagros Mountain Southwest Iran Using Geoinformatics Techniques

For more effective use of ground fresh water resources, a remote sensing and GIS has been using in many places in last decades. The Pabdeh anticline belongs to the Zagros Mountains in the southwest Iran. This area is exposed in the karst region of Iran. The digital topographic maps in scale 1:25000 within GIS environment have been studied to observe the risk reduction and changing of the water resources because of the tectonic activities which is a crucial to generate a groundwater disaster in the study area. The area has been visually and digitally interpreted to delineate DEM, drainage network, drainage basin, karst landforms, lineaments and lithology for ground water reduction and possible new locations to explore and reduce the risk reduction and disasters. Image elements are used during visual and digital interpretation. Extensive field works have been attempted using global positioning system (GPS) to collect water samples and to emphasis image interpretation. The study shows that the groundwater is controlled by geomorphology, landslides, lineament analysis, lithology and topography in the study area. The research shows that tectonics generate lineaments and landslides in the study area which play a major role for reduction in water level in places and further disasters for the environment and the life of the people living in villages. It is because changing in direction of the drainages and also dolines bring a big issue to think for a better management in the future life. This study shows the advantages of remote sensing and GIS techniques for Karst and water resources study. Use of GIStechnologies makes it possible to construct 3D models of river basins and adjust theoretical reserves of the deposits. The study indicates that to reduce the risk and avoid from future groundwater disaster, need to explore and detect new potential ground water locations. The system has been developed from 1:50,000 scale digital maps (which represent of Pabdeh Anticline and three basins), and 10 groundwater deposits, few exploitation places and watersheds, which comprise the water resources of Pabdeh anticline have been detected.