An Agricultural Decision Support System for Optimal Land Use Regarding Groundwater Vulnerability

The availability of quality water is a basic condition of socioeconomic development. The agriculture water demand can be damaged by contamination of groundwater resources. This paper proposes a tool to preserve groundwater quality by using groundwater vulnerability assessment methods and a decision support system (DSS). The mapping of intrinsic groundwater vulnerability was based on reliable methods, the DRASTIC and the SINTACS methods. A DSS was developed to assess the groundwater vulnerability and pollution risk due to agricultural activities and land use changes. The proposed DSS software package was designed using the Matlab language and efficiently performs tasks while incorporating new maps to cover new areas. The tool was tested at two study areas located in the Mediterranean that are dominated by different prevalent hydrogeological features, that is, the typical porous features of alluvial deposits in the Greek study area and the typical fissured and karstic features of limestones and dolostones in the Italian study area. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-0882-5.ch3.3