Modelling of groundwater flow in the ancient city Olympos, Antalya

Olympos is an ancient city founded by the river. The ancient city was built on a shallow groundwater table. The studies in the region prove that there was an ancient lake in the north of the river which divides the city into two parts from the middle and the lake was fed from the surrounding limestones. Nowadays, the lake has dried up due to the altered hydrological conditions and very shallow groundwater levels are observed within the boundaries of the ancient lake. The archeological excavations have revealed that the lake was used in the ancient times, and ancient channels draining the excess water in it were existed. These ancient channels are currently unavailable because of both the current hydrological conditions and the changes in the sea level. Not only existing a difference between the sea level in the past and the present but also the channels which were formed naturally or artificially to maintain the current ground-surface water balance, some of the ancient structures have been drowned today. This situation makes it difficult to carry out archaeological research in the region. In the light of this thesis project, it is aimed to produce the basic information about the drainage methods to be applied on drowned structures in order to sustain the archeological researches in the ancient city of Olympos; besides, it is purposed to model the relationship between the groundwater and the surface water of the region by using the GMS interface of MODFLOW-2000 software.