Groundwater potential zoning by integrating multi-criteria decision and bivariate analysis methods – a case study on Cheyyar River Basin, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

The study aims to improve the pairwise decision matrix of the widely used analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to generate groundwater potential zones for Cheyyar River Basin through multi-influencing factor (MIF) and bivariate analysis. MIF prioritizes 11 time-independent input thematic layers, and Cramer’s V dependency value from bivariate analysis is used to assign the decision values of the pairwise matrix. The resulted potential zones are classified into four categories: Poor, Moderate, Good and Very-Good, with 15.33, 70.78, 13.88 and 0.002% of the total area. Well yield data from fourteen wells are used for validation, and the accuracy value is 85.67%.HIGHLIGHTSUtilizing the Cramer’s V value for pairwise matrix enhanced the reliability of decision.The spatial variation of potential is influenced majorly by the Lithology.Annual average rainfall and groundwater fluctuation indicating the groundwater availability matches with the zones of groundwater potential.