Ali et al. (2026) Spatial Decoupling of Climatic Recharge Opportunity and Groundwater Response in an Alluvial Fan: Implications for Regional Managed Aquifer Recharge Screening

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Water
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-09-19
• Authors: Ahmed Majeed Ali, Viktória Blanka, Diaa Sheishah, Enas Abdelsamei, Zalán Tobak, Brigitta Szabó, Károly Barta, Ferenc Kovács, Károly Fiala, Ali Elgendy, Ralf Ludwig, László Pásztor, Péter Kozák, György Sípos
• DOI: 10.3390/w18182335

Research Groups

• Department of Hydrology and Water Resources Management, Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest, Hungary)
• Institute of Geography and Geology, University of Szeged (Szeged, Hungary)

Short Summary

This study presents a dual-indicator framework to separate climatic recharge opportunity from groundwater response in heterogeneous alluvial aquifers. The framework was applied to the Dél-Békés sector of the Maros alluvial fan (Hungary) and identified 100 candidate managed aquifer recharge sites.

Objective

• Investigate a method to explicitly separate climatic recharge opportunity from groundwater response in regional aquifer assessment

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Basin-scale analysis with application to the Dél-Békés sector of the Maros alluvial fan (Hungary)
• Temporal Scale: Annual time step for water balance and groundwater-level fluctuation calculations

Methodology and Data

• Models used:
  • Machine-learning models for emulating RWB and classifying MedAF
• Data sources:
  • Climatic data from ERA5 reanalysis
  • Soil-hydraulic, terrain, hydrogeomorphic, and land-cover data from various national databases and maps

Main Results

• The dual-indicator framework achieved areas of applicability exceeding 95% of the basin for both RWB and MedAF models.
• Observational support for MedAF varied with proximity to monitoring wells.
• Limited spatial correspondence was found between the two indicators, agreeing across only 35.7% of the area.

Contributions

• The dual-indicator framework provides a potentially transferable strategy for regional groundwater assessment and first-stage MAR screening in heterogeneous alluvial aquifers.

Funding

• This research was supported by the Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH) under grant numbers FK 132129 and PD 126444.

Citation

@article{Ali2026Spatial,
  author = {Ali, Ahmed Majeed and Blanka, Viktória and Sheishah, Diaa and Abdelsamei, Enas and Tobak, Zalán and Szabó, Brigitta and Barta, Károly and Kovács, Ferenc and Fiala, Károly and Elgendy, Ali and Ludwig, Ralf and Pásztor, László and Kozák, Péter and Sípos, György},
  title = {Spatial Decoupling of Climatic Recharge Opportunity and Groundwater Response in an Alluvial Fan: Implications for Regional Managed Aquifer Recharge Screening},
  journal = {Water},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.3390/w18182335},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/w18182335}
}