Application of Remote Sensing and GIS for Groundwater Recharge Potential Zone Mapping in Upper Betwa Watershed

Abstract

Groundwater is unevenly distributed and limited in hard rock terrains. The study has been carried out using remote sensing and GIS to delineate the potential recharge zones of groundwater in upper Betwa watershed, Raisen district, Madhya Pradesh, India. The different thematic layers viz; geology, lineament density, soil, slope, land use/land cover (LU/LC) and drainage density were prepared for assessment of groundwater recharge potential in the area. District Resource Map (DRM) of Geological Survey of India (GSI) 2002 has been used for geological study. SRTM Digital Elevation Model (DEM) was used to obtain the slope. LANDSAT-8 OLI data has been processed for lineament density and LU/LC analysis. Survey of India toposheets were used for drainage density analyses and National Bureau of Soil Survey & Land Use Planning Nagpur (NBSS&LUP) map used for soil study. Weightage has been given to parameters in thematic maps as per the relative influence of each parameter in the groundwater recharge. Rating to each class of parameters was given as per there relative significance in groundwater recharge. Finally, groundwater recharge potential map has been prepared by overlaying all thematic maps in terms of the weighted index overlay (WIO) method. The output map has been further classified into three zones (i) low ground-water potential zone (121.80 km2) (ii) moderate groundwater potential zone (387.78 km2) and (iii) high groundwater potential zone (173.35 km2). The output results were validated by plotting the specific yield data and groundwater level of selected wells in delineated groundwater recharge potential zones using GPS locations. It has been seen that most of the groundwater productive wells functioning in the area is falling in high and moderate groundwater recharge potential zone.