Evaluation of ground water quality in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh using remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS)

Abstract

Lucknow being capital city of most poapulated state of India is facing tremendous population pressure. This has led to overexploitation of natural resources and among them water is most valuable natural resource essential for human survival and ecosystem. This study monitors ground water quality, relating it to land use/land cover and habitation mask of different water quality parameters are prepared by using geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing technique. Base map was prepared by Survey of India toposheets on 1:50.000 scale. The land use / land cover map was made from satellite imagery and GIS software like ERDAS Imagine and ARC GIS 9.3. The ground water samples were collected from the selected locations and were analyzed for different physico-chemical analysis and a water quality index was prepared. Water quality index (WQI) was then calculated on the basis of WHO standards to classify suitability for drinking water. The WQI map was interpolated using inverse distance weight (IDW) method on GIS for spatial variation and suitability of quality assessment.