A Predictive Expert-Based System for Assessing Aquifer Sustainability Risk of the Modder River Catchment

Groundwater constitutes a significant source of freshwater in the global water resources, especially in arid and semi-arid regions like the Modder River catchment. However, the Modder River catchment is facing over-abstraction and inefficient management practices. This study presents a predictive expert-based system for assessing groundwater sustainability at the Modder River Catchment. The system integrates hydrological data from the Modder River Catchment including pump rate and storage, to calculate the Aquifer Sustainability Index (ASI) for individual boreholes. Additionally, groundwater depletion was modeled over a period of 50 years and visualized on an interactive spatial map across the catchment using folium Python package. The ASI result shows that 26 of the 51 boreholes are sustainable and visualized on the interactive depletion map. The Groundwater depletion model results show 25 of the 51 boreholes are at risk of depletion after 50 years. The reward system shows that approximately 13 boreholes have less than R10,000. This approach can be implemented for sustainable groundwater management on boreholes with similar challenges.