ESTABLISHING OF THE SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF DISPOSABLE GROUNDWATER RESOURCES BY MULTI-CRITERIA ANALYSIS METHOD

Abstract

A hydrogeologist often faces a serious difficulty in estimation of available groundwater resources. In contrast to renewable water resources, which are valuable for a study area and estimated with greater or lower precision depending on the quality of available data, disposable groundwater resources cannot be treated as a natural and relatively constant characteristic of the management area, because their size and spatial distribution depend on criteria assumed to set an optimal way for managing water supplies. Since those criteria can be defined in various ways and their significance can vary as well, spatial distribution of groundwater resources and their size can theoretically have infinite number of equally correct solutions. They can be only treated as optimal for a strictly specified set of criteria and therefore can be modified according to different needs and assumed priorities. Interpreted this way, they can only be calculated by the use of model simulation, because only a mathematical model is an effective tool for making such multi-criteria analyses. The paper presents an approach for setting criteria that limit the input and output control data, applied by HYDREKO in the process of spatial distribution of disposable groundwater resources. An example of use of this method is presented for the management area P-XVIII Dolna Warta (Rodzoch et al., 2017).