Impact of land use/land cover changes on groundwater resources in Al Ain region of the United Arab Emirates using remote sensing and GIS techniques

Urbanisation causes land degradation problems, including an increased pressure on natural resources and management of water resources. This study aims to investigate the impact of the spatio-temporal dynamics of land use land cover (LULC) changes on groundwater table in the region of Al Ain, United Arab Emirates (UAE), from 2006 to 2016. The Landsat images, Landsat ETM for 2006 and Landsat 8 for 2016, were acquired from the earth explorer site. A semi-supervised hybrid classification method was used for image classification and post-classification techniques for LULC change detection. The study area was categorised into six major LULC classes. These are agriculture/farms/oasis, gardens/playgrounds, urban areas, sandy areas, lake and mixed urban/ sandy areas. Accuracy assessment of LULC were evaluated using confusion matrix and ground truthing. The obtained land use and land cover maps were also correlated with spatial groundwater table maps prepared with groundwater data. It was found that agriculture/farms/oasis and urban areas expanded from 42,560 ha to 45,950 ha (7.38%) and from 8150 ha to 9105 ha (10.49%) from 2006 to 2016, respectively. The corresponding water demand was increased by 9.56% and 22.22%, respectively. Natural sandy area was found to decrease by 8.10%. As groundwater is major source of water for agriculture in this region, the spatial maps also revealead average declining rate of groundwater depth 40.44% with expansion of urban and agricultural areas over the last 10 years. The outcomes of the study would help concerning authorities for a sustainable management of its land and groundwater resources.

Automated summary

This study investigated the impact of land use/cover changes on groundwater table in Al Ain, UAE from 2006 to 2016, finding that agriculture/farms/oasis and urban areas expanded, leading to increased water demand and decreased natural sandy areas. The average groundwater depth also declined with expansion of urban and agriculture areas, indicating the need for sustainable management of land and groundwater resources.