Ministry of Energy and Water

Groundwater is the primary source of water for drinking, agriculture, and industry in Kabul City. Understanding groundwater dynamics and predict future stresses on the groundwater system of Kabul aquifer is crucial for the effective and sustainable use, and management of the aquifer. A comprehensive dataset introduced to MODFLOW code using GMS interface was employed to simulate groundwater flow model in Kabul aquifer in steady state and transient conditions. The simulated groundwater flow shows that the main sources of water entering the aquifer are recharge from rivers, infiltration from precipitation, inflow from nearby aquifers, and return flow from pumping. Water mainly leaves the aquifer through pumping and by flowing into nearby aquifers. The simulated groundwater budget shows a negative balance (− 24.89 million m3 per year) between recharge and discharge in the plain. This study uses groundwater modeling to assess the aquifer system in the Kabul Plain with greater accuracy. The result of invers groundwater modeling shows that hydraulic conductivity ranges from 0.2 meters per day in low-permeability areas to 197.83 meters per day near rivers and the Logar aquifer. The aquifer is anisotropic, meaning its properties vary with direction, and the specific yield ranges from 0.33

The Ethiopian Rift is the most climate change–prone area with limited water resources, facing critical water resource problems. Future climate change will likely further intensify the existing challenges in the near to long-term. Therefore, evaluating the effect of climate change on spatio-temporal hydrological processes is essential for water resource management. This specific research assesses the impact of climate change on water balance components as well as stream flows in the Ziway Lake Watershed (ZLW) situated in central Main Ethiopian Rift. Multiple high-resolution Regional Climate Model (RCM) outputs under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) scenarios were used to assess the impact of climatic variables for three future time horizons: 2030s, 2060s, and 2080s. To assess the climate change impact, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was forced with the climate datasets to simulate the baseline and future period’s water balance components and stream flows under both RCPs. For all future time horizons under both scenarios, the projected climate result shows a declining trend in annual precipitation (PCP). Conversely, the long-term mean annual temperature indicated an uninterruptable increasing trend leading to an estimated rise between 2.46 and 4.81 °C by the end of the twenty-first century. As a consequence of the predicted climate change, a strong impact on the partitioning of the mean annual PCP into different hydrologic components of the watershed is likely to happen. The potential evapotranspiration (PET) may rise, and other hydrologic components such as actual evapotranspiration (AET), surface runoff (SURQ), recharge (RCHG), and water yield (WYLD) may decline compared to the historic period. Most importantly, the SURQ, RCHG, and WYLD expected to decline substantially in the rift floor relative to the opposite-facing rift margins. Correspondingly, the effect of climate change is also propagated in the stream flows (Meki and Katar), which are projected to decline gradually from near to far future time windows. The outcomes of this research work provide valuable insights to implement appropriate water resources management strategies to adapt and mitigate the negative effects of climate change in rift lake basins and other watersheds with similar agro-ecology.

This paper aims to quantify the subbasin’s potable water supply demand forecast from 2023 to 2050 under various scenarios of climate change and socioeconomic development. The variability of the climate and the resulting problems with urbanization threaten the availability of water resources, especially in less developed countries like Ethiopia. Thus, the main objective of this study is showing the necessary to determine the amount of water needed in advance, in order to comply with the availability of water resources within a specified future period under different scenarios. Our indicator-based approach used a multicriteria decision-making technique. Accordingly, several important variables were considered, including climatological, anthropological, demographic, socioeconomic, and economic variables, in addition to water engineering-related factors (e.g. Water losses). The method also considered a number of factors, such as unexpected and extreme temperature changes, and forecasting factors studied by the Ethiopian Ministry of Water and Energy. The projected population in the subbasin is estimated at 2.52 million, so the total projected water supply demand i.e., for domestic, non-domestic, industrial, commercial, public, and institutional is approximately 126.53 MCM/yr by 2050. Our results revealed how changes in both climatic and socioeconomic factors strongly influence future water resource system performance, and this will help the water services provider better prioritize the refurbishment of existing infrastructure and investment in new infrastructure, and more importantly, manage the subbasin effectively by introducing resilient adaptation options.

Groundwater from shallow and deep aquifers are widely used for drinking, agricultural and industrial use in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. However, unplanned urbanization and rapid population growth has led to the installation of numerous unlicensed wells to meet the public demand. This has caused to extraction of huge amounts of groundwater from the subsurface and further deterioration of groundwater quality. Therefore, understanding the hydrogeochemical characteristics of groundwater in shallow aquifers and deep aquifers is imperative for sustainable management of the groundwater resource in Kabul Plain. Thus, in this study, we used a multi-parameter approach, involving hydrochemical and environmental isotopes to understand the geochemical evolution of entire groundwater system of the Kabul Plain including river and dam water. The results of this study show that shallow and deep aquifers are dominantly of Mg-(Ca)-HCO3 and Na-Cl water type, respectively. We observed that (1) water-rock interaction is the major contributing factor to the chemical compositions of groundwater in the Kabul Plain; (2) groundwater in deep aquifer is mainly influenced by silicate weathering, and dissolution of evaporitic and carbonate minerals and reverse cation exchange; (3) dissolution of carbonates and silicate weathering plays a pivotal role in the groundwater chemistry of shallow aquifer; (4) the stable isotopes of groundwater display that the shallow aquifer is principally recharged by river water and local precipitation; (5) the tritium analysis exhibited that groundwater of shallow aquifer was primarily recharged recently, whereas groundwater of deep aquifer is the mixture of pre 1953 with post 1953 groundwater. This study revealed that there are hydraulic interactions between the two aquifers and the deep aquifer is recharged through shallow aquifer. The findings of this study would be useful for Afghanistan's water authorities to develop an effective strategy for sustainable water resources management in the Kabul Basin.

This study used remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) techniques to assess groundwater potential areas by applying two multi-criteria decision-making analyses tools in the Arghandab river basin. Twelve influencing parameters summarizing basin characteristics were gathered and generated using geospatial RS and GIS tools. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and analytical network process (ANP) were examined to weigh, ranking, and reclassify raster to produce groundwater potential maps. Two multi-criteria decision models were applied to compare results and suitability in the study area. The results of the AHP analysis delineate five groundwater potential zones (GWPZs) classified as very poor (29%), poor (22%), moderate (17%), high (19%), and very high (14%). On the other hand, the results of the ANP analysis classified GWPZs as very poor (25%), poor (9%), moderate (25%), high (30%), and very high (11%). To validate generated GWPZs maps, a total of 270 well locations data were utilized in the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. ROC model accuracy in training and validation stages is marginally higher for the ANP model (0.810 and 0.823) as compared to the AHP model (0.749 and 0.742). The groundwater potential map delineated in this study offers a preliminary assessment to scientists, public authorities, and policy makers for sustainable management of groundwater resources in the study area.