Comparison of groundwater recharge estimation techniques: a case study from the Kucuk Menderes River basin in Turkey

Quantification of groundwater recharge is a basic prerequisite for efficient groundwater management. While there are several approaches to estimating groundwater recharge rates, some of the approaches proposed cannot be applied in basin-wide hydrogeological investigations due to a lack of data. Thus, some conventional recharge estimation techniques for which data are most often available have to be used in estimating groundwater recharge. In this study, water level fluctuation, the precipitation vs water level relation, and hydrological budget methods, are used to estimate recharge rates in the Kucuk Menderes River basin in Turkey. The recharge values obtained from these methods are compared and found that while some of them agree with each other, some vary at least in order of magnitude