Modeling and Evaluation of Ömerli Basin (Mardin, Southeastern Türkiye) Groundwater Potential using the GIS-Based Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) approach

Water, which is an indispensable element of human life, is also a basic need for living things and nature. Groundwater, which is the world's freshwater source, has low-cost usage opportunities because it is generally of high quality and does not need to be treated. For this reason, there has been an excessive increase in the use of groundwater in recent years due to the low rainfall and limited surface waters. Accordingly, in recent years, the lack of precipitation and the decrease in surface water potential have led to an excessive increase in groundwater use. Nowadays, technology, which is called the information age and finds its place in almost all professional applications, supports practitioners in terms of time, effort, and cost. Among these technological studies, Geographic Information System (GIS) applications are one of the most popular fields of study (detection and monitoring of groundwater resources and application of thematic maps with spatial analysis). The AHP technique, one of the GIS-supported MCDM methods, was used to reveal the groundwater potential of the Ömerli district basin of Mardin province. First of all, raster maps were created in the GIS program ArcGIS ArcMap environment, and then reclassified maps were produced. These data regarding the basin study were obtained from official institutions and private drilling companies that work on groundwater. In the first stage of the study, data related to groundwater potential such as precipitation, static water level, dynamic water level, well yield, depth, and aspect were modeled. In the second stage, these data were weighted in AHP and the resulting map was created and interpreted; It was created and interpreted with very bad, bad, moderate, good and very good values. In the third and last stage, the results and recommendations were discussed.