Contribution of GIS in the Mapping, Interpolation and Modeling of Isohypses of the Pliocene Aquifuge of the Free Water Table of the Fez-Meknes Basin

Abstract

In order to model the water flow of the free Quaternary aquifer of the Fez-Meknes basin, it is essential to determine the precise geometric limits of the aquifer. Indeed, the characterization and representation of the underground structure of the Miocene marl top which forms the aquiclude of the aquifer, constitutes the fundamental step to study and understand its influence on the groundwater flow. This study is facilitated by the available data, which allow to represent the underground formations on isohypses maps. The data base is formed by reconnaissance drillings, and the extraction of marl altitudes from previous geological works. During this work the generation of the marl top elevation map was based on the test of four interpolation methods, which correspond to : Kriging, IDW method, Natural Neighbors, and Topo to Raster, in order to choose the most reliable and best suited to the study area. On the one hand, the calculation of the conformity index between the values measured in the field and the estimated values for each method was successively (0.9796, 0.9848, 0.9814, 0.9842). On the other hand the values of the root mean square error (RMSE) were successively (13.59, 7.42, 21.27, 14.01). The comparison of these results allowed us to choose the IDW interpolation as the most reliable and suitable to interpolate the top of the aquiclude of the free water table of the Fez Meknes basin with a compliance index the highest and a RMSE the lowest compared to other methods.