The Application of Geostatistical and GIS Techniques in Locating Suitable Areas for Irrigation Systems in Arid Regions

The importance of groundwater as a source of water supply in arid, semi –arid areas in recent years due to the uncontrolled exploitation of groundwater have been doubled. Uncontrolled exploitation has been caused a drop in the water table in many areas of the country, including this region. With replace methods of modern irrigation instead of traditional irrigation methods can prevent drop the water table and also desertification. Water quality, is one of the major limitations of pressurized irrigation in arid and semi-arid areas. The aim of this research to identify the potential pressurized irrigation in areas of plain of Khaled -Abad with using the techniques Geostatistics and GIS. For the zonation of plain water quality used of quality parameters of 11 piezometric well. In order to zoning map of the quality of geostatistics method IDW and Kriging, selected Kriging method, because it has lower RMSE and MAE. Then by overlay layers of water quality based on Boolean logic, selected areas with good water quality for applying pressurized irrigation systems. The results showed that 21.9% of the area suitable for sprinkler irrigation and 54.4% of the area suitable for drip irrigation. Piezometers used for drip irrigation have been in broader range. Therefore, a large part of the study area executable for Drip irrigation system in compared to Sprinkler irrigation and also efficiency is higher.  Keywords: GIS, Water quality, Pressurized irrigation, Locating, Badrood.