Al-Faria Catchment is located in the North – Eastern part of the West-Bank, Palestinian territories. It is classified as an arid to semi- arid region with a total area of 320 Km2, which is about 6% of the area of the West-Bank and is considered to be one of the major water basins. Water resources in the catchment are either surface or ground water. Most of the runoff generated at the catchment during the wet period from November until April is lost as there is no existing storage structures in the catchment to store excess water.
Al-Faria catchment is considered as an indispensable groundwater resource in the North-Eastern part of the West-Bank, Palestine, since it supplies domestic inhabitants, their livestock, and the agricultural lands with needed amounts of water, therefore, this project aims at choosing the best artificial groundwater recharge system that takes benefit of the huge amount of runoff generated during the wet period at the catchment by artificially recharging it into the ground water aquifer which is comprised of several rock formations from the Triassic (Lower Cretaceous) to recent age. These formations are composed mainly of Limestone, Dolomite and Marl, so the artificially recharged groundwater can be used again when the demand is at its highest during hot seasons.
The main data for this project was obtained from a recorded storm on February, 14th, 2004. HEC-HMS 4.1 was used to simulate and model the rainfall-runoff process at Al-Faria catchment by identifying two sub-catchments: Al-Badan and Al-Faria with a junction point at Al-Malaqi Bridge. The two sub-catchments were identified with a loss method of SCS-Curve Number and a Transform Method of SCS-unit Hyetograph. The peak flow for this storm was obtained by HEC-HMS and was calibrated according to a previous study which was conducted for the same storm and location, and potential artificial groundwater recharge locations were chosen according to the geology of the area. Another two rainfall events that occurred in the years 2005 and 2016 were later modeled using HEC-HMS.
The main objectives of this study can be summarized as follows:
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To quantify the runoff due to a specific storm using HEC-HMS.
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To estimate the amount of water that can be artificially recharged.
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To determine possible artificial recharge sites and best artificial recharge method.
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To determine the total Catchment Area that can benefit from the mentioned artificial recharge technique.
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To generally study the benefits VS. the costs of this project.
Practically, this project mainly aims at increasing the amount of water available for usage by the residents of Al-Faria Catchment by artificially recharging the runoff into the ground water aquifers; which will most likely result in reducing the price of water and increasing the water supply for local citizens - especially Farmers, thus increasing the amount of cultivated areas which will undoubtedly result in supporting the national and local economy and creating new job opportunities.