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In arid-region wadis, groundwater storage lies within shallow Quaternary alluvium deposits, which are connected with the present-day hydrological cycle and, therefore, are replenished due to occasional runoff and flash flood occurrences. The groundwater resources are precious in these environments; therefore, their potentiality must be assessed with care in the best manner. The aquifer potentiality is calculated after the storativity and transmissivity parameter estimations, which require rather long-duration field tests with restrictive assumptions in the theoretical model developments, such as the homogeneity and isotropy.

It is the main purpose of this paper to expose the fundamentals of the slope-matching procedure (SMP) and its application for short-duration field tests in arid-region aquifers. In this manner, the subsurface hydrogeological behaviours of the bored land pieces at and around the well locations are prospected in a detailed and refined manner. It is shown that in many cases the classical techniques are appropriate, inconvenient and inapplicable with conclusive reliable results and conclusions. The application of the SMP is presented for some aquifer tests from the central western part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Copyright (c) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.