Identification of Groundwater Potential Zone using Remote Sensing and GIS Technique

Abstract

Groundwater is an important resource contributing significantly in total annual supply. However, over- exploitation has depleted groundwater availability considerably and also led to land subsidence at some places. Assessing the potential zone of groundwater recharge is extremely important for the protection of water quality and the management of groundwater systems. Groundwater potential zones are demarked with the help of remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques. In this study a standard methodology is proposed to determine groundwater potential using integration of RS & GIS technique. The composite map is generated using GIS tools. The accurate information to obtain the parameters that can be considered for identifying the groundwater potential zone such as geology, slope, drainage density, geomorphic units and lineament density are generated using the satellite data and survey of India (SOI) toposheets of scale 1:50000. It is then integrated with weighted overlay in ArcGIS. Suitable ranks are assigned for each category of these parameters. For the various geomorphic units, weight factors are decided based on their capability to store groundwater. This procedure is repeated for all the other layers and resultant layers are reclassified. The groundwater potential zones are classified into five categories like very poor, poor, moderate, good & excellent. The use of suggested methodology is demonstrated for a selected study area in Parbhani district of Maharashtra. This groundwater potential information will be useful for effective identification of suitable locations for extraction of water.