GIS and Remote Sensing Applications for Rainwater Harvesting in the Syrian Desert (Al-Badia)

This paper attempts to describe the state of Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) techniques and the contributions of GIS and Remote Sensing (RS) technologies for RWH in The Syrian Desert (AL-Badia). Studies were conducted using physiographic factors of The Syrian Desert (the natural factors, the climatic factors, the pastoral cover, and animal wealth) for the applications of GIS and Remote sensing techniques with the view to establishing it for Rainwater Harvesting activities. Images of the Indian satellite with ground resolution of 5 m2 were used to identify tents of herds during the grazing seasons. The image processing software ERDAS IMAGINE and GIS software ARC/INFO were used to process the images and to establish a geo-information system comprising digital data sets of satellite imagery, topography, soil, vegetation, hydrology, and meteorology. This information was used to study the watershed network in the Syrian Desert (AL-Badia), and to identify areas generally suitable for water harvesting in order to determine water harvesting techniques for those sites.