Demarcation of groundwater potential zones in Ponnai sub-basin, Southern India using remote sensing, GIS and fuzzy-AHP approaches

Abstract

Groundwater is an essential source for household, irrigation and industry needs. The amount of groundwater and its quality are rapidly declining because of urbanization and industrialization. Groundwater resources in hard rock regions should be handled properly to maximize their utilization. This work aims to demarcate the Groundwater Potential Zones (GWPZ) in a part of the Palar River Basin (Ponnai sub-basin) by combining Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information System (GIS) and Fuzzy-Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP). The factors which influence the groundwater like geology, land use/land cover (LULC), geomorphology, slope, soil, rainfall, lineament density (LD), drainage density (DD), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), topographic wetness index (TWI) and topographic position index (TPI) are considered for mapping of GWPZ. The weightage is allocated to these parameters on the basis of the FAHP technique and the obtained groundwater potential map was classified as, very poor (13.5%), poor (21.76%), moderate (31.5%), good (20.66%) and very good (8.54%). The GWPZ map was validated with the actual well yield of the Ponnai sub-basin. The research work will serve as a guideline for the effective use of groundwater and long-term sustainable management of the aquifer in the Ponnai sub-basin. HIGHLIGHTS Groundwater potential zone of the Ponnai sub-basin in Palar River is identified using Fuzzy-AHP approach.; Eleven groundwater influencing parameters have been used for finding the groundwater potential zone with the help of GIS and remote sensing.; Validation is done by comparing the result with the actual yield of the wells present in the study region.;

Keywords

• fahp approach
• gis
• groundwater potential
• ponnai river basin
• remote sensing