Abstract:

To promote water productivity (Wp) in the Orontes Basin, which suffers from many problems like unsustainable freshwater use in the upper and midmost sub-basins (from Lebanese-Syrian borders to Rastan dam) in parallel with increased agriculture production intensity, increased pollution, population, and economic growth, some logical solutions (strategies) were studied by using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model.
Climate changes, marginal water reuse, industrial growth, and the implementation of new water saving techniques such as maintenance of domestic and agricultural networks, closed water cycles in industry, application of the low population growth rate, proposed construction of a new dam downstream of Lake Qattineh, and virtual water concept, all those were considered important factors in the software’s analysis.
The results are visualized as graphs, maps and tables, and show the importance of Remote Sensing techniques (RS) and GIS in the description of the studied basin in terms of accuracy, saving effort and time, as well as an employment of derived GIS layers in WEAP, which linked the past values and present ones with future strategies data digitally after being carefully calibrating them, which overall will achieve the sustainable development in studied area by 2050, if it applied on the ground. The unmet demand will almost disappear in the climate cases [normal (A) and dry (B)], and we will get surplus of 25 MCM at (A) by 2050. While the unmet demand will remain at the very dry case (C) and the basin’s Wp will tot up to 76% compared to its same value -64% in the Reference scenario (RF) without application any strategy. Also, when we take the virtual water concept in account, can save more water and money.