Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1979

Abstract

Groundwater has recently been a main resource for water demand for domestic use and for irrigation in Lebanon. During the last two decades, surface and shallow groundwater have been severely exhausted -to-recover the water demand. Indeed, this reserve has been sharply depleted. The purpose of this study is to understand the groundwater flow/storage regime and the mechanism of water loss into the sea. Thus, the first implementation was the elaboration of groundwater recharge and accumulation maps to identify regions with different potentiality for groundwater existence. About 42% and 30% of the Lebanese territory showed a high to very high recharge and accumulation potential respectively, most of which is situated in Occidental Lebanon where carbonate rocks are well developed. The second object of the paper is to detect freshwater seeps into the sea. Therefore, Landsat 8 satellite imagery, with thermal bands, were processed for the period of 2013- 2015. The results showed thermal anomalies as water plumes along Akkar and Batroun coast Akkar plume followed major rainfall event (after 20 days) and it is warmer than the t sea water, indicating that the water is heated up in the basalt rocks available in the area before seeping in the sea. Two cool plumes have been detected in Batroun, one following a rainfall event (after 10 days) and the other not preceded by a rainfall, which indicates that it is snow-fed. The study represents an integrate'methodology to assess the groundwater potentiality and the loss of ground water into the sea and can be reproduced for other study areas.

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