Remote Sensing Inputs to SWAT Model for Groundwater Recharge Estimates in Kuwait

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was used to provide continuous (1998-2006) simulation of overland flow, channel flow, transmission losses for the for the Raudatain watershed in northern Kuwait, and the Umm Al Aish watershed in central Kuwait covering approximately 50% of the Kuwaiti landscape. Inputs required for the SWAT model were extracted from readily available global remotely sensed satellite datasets. These include precipitation from the 3-hourly TRMM data, stream networks and watershed boundaries from SRTM 90 m data. Preliminary results from TRMM NASA TOVAS suggest that northern and central Kuwait receive an average annual precipitation of ~210 mm/year, of which 30mm could potentially recharge the shallow aquifers in the area. Applications similar to those presented here that utilize SWAT modeling and call on readily available remotely acquired data are extremely valuable for a country like Kuwait and similar areas/settings world-wide. Such models and approaches can potentially provide alternative solutions for the assessment of sustainable water resources, where traditional data required for understanding these hydrologic systems are absent or deficient over the spatial and temporal domains of interest.