Supplying crops’ water needs in arid areas is only possible through irrigation, since low precipitation, high evaporation and inappropriate distribution of rainfall makes dry farming economically unjustifiable. Yet, perennial rivers cannot supply water needs of different sectors, and the shortcomings must be compensated from other areas like underground resources. In arid and semi-arid areas, inconstant distribution of precipitation across time and space and lack of appropriate vegetation have changed the life-giving precipitation into a natural disaster which becomes useless in the form of devastating flood. In such areas, artificial feeding of groundwater resources by floodwater is a way of preventing land degradation.
In the present article, we first produced different maps (slope, soil, land usage, Isohyetal) of Sabzevar city. Then adapting information layers using GIS, appropriate places for artificial feeding of groundwater were exploited. Afterwards, distribution map of Quaternary alluviums across the city was exploited in GIS environment to determine appropriate places for distributing floodwater.
Results indicate that 3279.96 km² (out of 20502 km², 16%) are appropriate for artificial feeding plans, and around 6017.76 km², i.e. around 29.4 percent of the city area are appropriate for floodwater distribution plans. Finally integrating these two maps, an area of around 1591.56 km² (7.76%) is estimated to be appropriate for artificial feeding and distributing floodwater in this city.