Groundwater Potential Zone Delineation in Hard Rock Terrain for Sustainable Groundwater Development and Management in South Madhya Pradesh, India

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In view of the vital significance of water resources and issues emerging from their temporal and spatial distribution and utilization posing serious problems to the land resources and to the society United Nations has identified sustainable management of water resources (SDG 6) as one of the seventeen major Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this perspective, the purpose of the study is to identify the groundwater potential zones in the hard rock terrain of Betul-Chhindwara Region, Madhya Pradesh, India, using AHP technique. The study area comprises the sub-watersheds of Tawa river (Narmada basin), Tapi river (Tapi basin), Kanhan and Pench rivers (Godavari basin). Various thematic layers such as geomorphology, geology, physiography, rainfall, soil, slope, lineament, drainage density, groundwater depth, and land use/ land cover were developed. The analytical hierarchy process helps to delineate groundwater prospect zones, which are categorized into five classes, i.e. very poor, poor, moderate, good, and very good based on objective, criteria, and preference. The good, moderate, and poor groundwater potential zones cover 4815 sq. km., 6423 sq. km, and 4857 sq. km, respectively, comprising 22.46%, 29.96%, and 22.65% of the entire region under study. The result indicates that 15.22% of the area comprising 3262.10 sq. km have very good groundwater potential whereas 9.71% (2080 sq. km) has very poor groundwater potential. The obtained result has been verified through field check based on the yield data collected from 16 bore wells in the study area. The accuracy of the results was 75% that proves the efficiency of the adopted techniques. Thus, this study will be efficient for the sustainable development and management of groundwater in the study area.