The United Nations (UN) annual report on water resources released in 2015 announced that the world will face a global water deficit of about 40% by the year 2030. Around half of the world’s population depends on groundwater for fulfilling the daily consumption (drinking; domestic use). As humans require a water supply for their survival, it seems important to establish an adequate strategy for water resources management and for predicting the water balance which in their turn enable the estimation of groundwater recharge. Such a task has been the focus of the present study. This study intends to estimate the average recharge and predict the water situation under different scenarios up to 2050 for the Northern Gafsa aquifer (South-Western Tunisia), characterized by an arid climate. The estimation of the recharge rate and water balance depends on the piezometric data (recorded by 16 piezometers during 18 years (2001–2018)) which was used in the balance sheet method and in the interpolation by Arcgis software. The spatial study of the piezometric variation during the period between 2011 and 2018 has revealed that the southern part of the aquifer is the most vulnerable to depletion. The prediction of the water situation of the studied aquifer is established on three scenarios, corresponding to exploitation growth rates of 2.2, 4.8 and 8.5% for scenarios 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The average recharge rate in the Northern Gafsa aquifer was estimated of 25.6 mm/year. Simulations of the examined aquifer depict a negative water balance and a continuous drawdown. The 8.5% growth rate (Scenario 3) is expected to cause the total depletion of Northern Gafsa groundwater in 2045. Indeed, this serious situation requires the establishment of an adequate strategy to mitigate the current overexploitation (limiting illicit drilling…) and to satisfy the growth in water needs (finding other water resources…).

2015年发布的联合国水资源年度报告宣布，到2030年，世界将面临约40％的全球水资源短缺。家庭使用）。由于人类需要水来维持生存，因此建立适当的水资源管理和预测水平衡的策略似乎很重要，这反过来又可以估算地下水的补给量。这样的任务一直是本研究的重点。这项研究的目的是估计北部加夫萨蓄水层（突尼斯西南部）以干旱气候为特征的平均补给量，并预测到2050年不同情景下的水状况。补给率和水平衡的估算取决于压计数据（在18年（2001-2018年）中由16台压计记录），该数据用于资产负债表方法和Arcgis软件的插值中。对2011年至2018年期间测压变化的空间研究表明，含水层的南部最容易枯竭。对被研究含水层水情的预测是建立在三种情况下的，分别对应于情况1、2和3的开采增长率分别为2.2％，4.8％和8.5％。北部加夫萨含水层的平均补给速率估计为25.6毫米/年。所检查的含水层的模拟显示出负水平衡和连续下降。8。