Topographic characteristics and estimation of the quantity of water harvesting in Al-Jafer depression

Abstract EN

Al-Jafer depression is the largest tectonic depression in the Southern Jordan Plateau.

It occupies the central region of Ma'an Governorate.

Covering area of ١٢٤٠٠ km², consisting about 37.7% of Ma’an area Governorate (32832km²).The basin was formed by a sequence of tectonic and faulting events and the most important patterns of Landforms are the Playa Basins (PB) and water spread.

The main goals of this paper are to monitor the topographical characteristics and the impact of these topographical characteristics on landforms patterns and estimating rainfall harvesting.

Based on a Topographic map at scale 1:50,000.

findings indicated that the: (1) - (PB) area highly clustered distributed in three main zones, although the (PB) are geographically distributed over 51% from the total area of AlJafer depression (2) - There are approximately 462 dry (PBs) with a total area of 422.2km ², which forms 3.4% from the total area with significant variation in its areas from a small area about, 0.988 m², to the largest one 250.1 km² (Qa’a Al-jafer).

(3)- The spatial distribution of (PB) are very much related to elevation and slope; which ranges between 833m to 1047, with mean of elevation 868.6m and standard deviation 36.2.

The (PB) distributed within slope degrees between 0º-13º.

(4)-average total rainfall estimates for the (PB) based on Thiessen polygon methods.

The total weighted rainfall about 6097.393(mm / hydrological year of (2016/2017), and Mean depth of rainfall in mm (PB) is 130.255(mm).