Essay of Modelling water resources management of the Oued Righ watershed (Algeria) using the WEAP decision support system

Abstract

The region of Oued Righ is considered as a poor region in terms of precipitation, which it receives less than 150 mm / year. The intensive use of groundwater has led to many problems of wastewater discharges and an excess of irrigation water, which makes an adverse impact on the environment and the rise of the water table.  Applying the WEAP software "water assessment and planning", this paper aims to develop a decision support system (DSS) to model the water resources and their uses, assessing the balance-equilibrium resources needs and analyze the future situation of the water according to different scenarios. It is observed that water use is excessive which reflected by an unmet demand and significant discharges into the canal. Otherwise, comparison between the scenarios elaborated shows a remarkable reduction in water demand and return flows to the river channel Righ. The application has been developed under Arcgis that provides an easy access to the information and offer the most suitable solutions to meet the demand and to properly manage the discharges from the
wastewater and irrigation.

Key-words: WEAP, water table, Scenarios, model, ArcGIS